From a Buddhist point of view, each aspect and moment of our lives is an illusion. According to the Buddha, it’s like seeing a black spot in the sky that you are unable to make sense of, then concentrating on it intensely until finally you are able to make out a flock of birds; or hearing a perfect echo that sounds exactly like a real person shouting back at you.
Life is nothing more than a continuous stream of sensory illusions, from the obvious ones, like fame and power, to those less easy to discern, like death, nosebleeds and headaches. Tragically, though, most human beings believe in what they see, and so the truth Buddha exposed about the illusory nature of life can be a little hard to swallow.
Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
from the book Not for Happiness: A Guide to the So-Called Preliminary Practices
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Further quotes from the book Not for Happiness:
- Rip that ego apart
- Spiritual practice is like riding a bicycle
- Maintaining a strong grip on the habits
- Everything we experience is a product of mind
- It’s all a matter of motivation
- The signs of progress
- The merit of maintaining mindfulness
- No substitute for being guided by a guru
- Wealth is contentment
- Mind-made illusions
- No end to samsara’s sufferings
- Dharma is not a therapy
- What Is Bodhichitta
- What is merit
- Our fundamental problem
- Adapting the Dharma
- Altruism bolsters self-confidence
- Nothing genuinely works in samsara
- Self Trapped
- Relative and absolute truth