In our everyday lives we have this impulse to shield ourselves and others from the truth. We’ve become impervious to obvious signs of decay. We encourage ourselves by “not dwelling on it” and by employing positive affirmations.

We celebrate our birthdays by blowing out candles, ignoring the fact that the extinguished candles could equally be seen as a reminder that we are a year closer to death. We celebrate the New Year with firecrackers and champagne, distracting ourselves from the fact that the old year will never come back and the new year is filled with uncertainty—anything can happen.

When that “anything” is displeasing, we deliberately divert our attention, like a mother distracting a child with rattles and toys.

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

from the book What Makes You Not a Buddhist

Read a random quote or see all quotes by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.

Further quotes from the book What Makes You Not a Buddhist:

• Emotionally not possible
• Change is inevitable
• Eventually we are disappointed
• Beyond nonviolence and meditation
• Like a child at the cinema
• Four seals
• Enjoying the bliss of ignorance
• The real source of fear is not knowing
• The impossible is possible
• Happily ever after
• Like moths to the flame
• Fearlessness
• Driven by ambitions
• Understanding the nature of enlightenment
• Nonviolence
• Corrosion begins as soon as creation begins
• The primordial absence of defilements
• Products and parts
• Emptiness