As Buddha said in the Prajnaparamita Sutra, all phenomena are like a dream and an illusion, even enlightenment is like a dream and an illusion. And if there is anything greater or grander than enlightenment, that, too, is like a dream and an illusion. His disciple, the great Nagarjuna, wrote that the Lord Buddha has not stated that after abandoning samsara there exists nirvana. The nonexistence of samsara is nirvana. A knife becomes sharp as the result of two exhaustions — the exhaustion of the whetstone and the exhaustion of the metal. In the same way, enlightenment is the result of the exhaustion of defilements and the exhaustion of the antidote of the defilements. Ultimately one must abandon the path to enlightenment. If you still define yourself as a Buddhist, you are not a buddha yet.
Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
from the book What Makes You Not a Buddhist
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Further quotes from the book What Makes You Not a Buddhist:
- The primordial absence of defilements
- Four seals
- Acts of Generosity
- Living fully
- Not paranoid but prepared
- Primordial purity
- Buddhist renunciation
- The impossible is possible
- The real source of fear is not knowing
- Driven by ambitions
- Shielding ourselves and others from the truth
- Pride and pity
- Bound by practicality
- Understanding the nature of enlightenment
- Corrosion begins as soon as creation begins
- What is life?
- Like a child at the cinema
- Fearlessness
- Change is inevitable