When you begin to notice the damage that emotions can do, awareness develops. When you have awareness — for example, if you know that you are on the edge of a cliff — you understand the dangers before you. You can still go ahead and do as you were doing; walking on a cliff with awareness is not so frightening anymore, in fact it is thrilling. The real source of fear is not knowing. Awareness doesn’t prevent you from living, it makes living that much fuller.

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:

• Living fully
• Not paranoid but prepared
• Primordial purity
• Buddhist renunciation
• The impossible is possible
• Driven by ambitions
• Shielding ourselves and others from the truth
• Pride and pity
• Not a buddha yet
• 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
• Where will they scatter my ashes
• Being a Buddhist
• Pride and pity