Buddhist texts do not exaggerate when they say that our greatest enemy is clinging to a self. Why? We are caught in a situation where mind is incapable of directly experiencing its own essential emptiness, and instead posits a self that must be sustained. We thus develop all the needs and wants that must be gratified in order to maintain such a self. Suffering comes from the endless search to satisfy what cannot be satisfied. “I” leads to “I am” which leads to “I want” and so on.
Kalu Rinpoche
from the book
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Further quotes from the book The Dharma :
- Commitment to pure Dharma practice
- Necessity of some intellectual basis
- Liberation at the time of death