‘From the birth and death of stars to the rise and fall of empires, from the smallest atom to the grandest mountains, all phenomena arise, exist for a time, and then dissolve. To deny this truth is to remain bound by illusion.’ Everyday Buddhism

‘It requires a deep willingness to let go of our most cherished assumptions about who we are. The self, though an illusion, feels very real, and its dissolution can evoke fear and resistance.’ Everyday Buddhism

‘What of you people? Do you know yourselves? When you doubt sufficiently, your enlightenment will be sufficient.’ Bassui Tokushō

‘Mindfulness in words — trying to make an internal commentary of what one is doing — is just a kind of illusion.’ Trevor Leggett

‘When you dream at night you see all sorts of different things. Are those things seen with the eyes? You believe you have eyes in the dream, don’t you? You walk around and look all over, yet in reality your eyes are closed and you’re in bed.’ Tulku Urgyen...

‘Just because one believes one has eyes and can therefore see does not change the fact that what one is experiencing is basically mind experience.’ Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

‘We can experience pain, joy, love, and loss, but these experiences are no longer seen as happening to a self. They are simply the play of phenomena arising and dissolving in awareness.’ Everyday Buddhism

William Blake famously wrote: “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite, for man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.” That purified perception, looking out into the...

‘In realising clear awareness, we are not attaining something new or extraordinary. Rather, we are returning to our natural state — a state in which the illusion of self has been seen through, and the world is experienced as it truly is.’ Everyday Buddhism

‘The boundaries between self and the world blur, and we come to realise that the world is not something outside of us, but is, in fact, an inseparable aspect of our experience.’ Everyday Buddhism