The disintegration of all things in their current or original state is inevitable. Every change contains within it an element of death. Today is the death of yesterday. Most people accept that everything born must eventually die; however, our definitions of “everything” and “death” may differ. For Siddhartha, birth refers to all creation — not just flowers and mushrooms and human beings, but everything that is born or assembled in any way. And death refers to any kind of disintegration or disassembly.

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