## Metadata - Author: [[Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse]] - Full Title: What Makes You Not a Buddhist - Category: #books ## Highlights - In this information age we are surrounded by images of decay and death—beheadings, bullfights, bloody murder. Far from reminding us of our own fate, these images are used for entertainment and profit. ([Location 165](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CS5KMG2&location=165)) - 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. ([Location 181](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CS5KMG2&location=181)) - As we sit watching commercials, waiting . . . our time in this life ebbs away. ([Location 192](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CS5KMG2&location=192)) - The model of success in our world is Bill Gates. Rarely do we think in terms of the success of Gandhi. ([Location 232](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CS5KMG2&location=232)) - When any two components or more come together, a new phenomenon emerges—nails and wood become a table; water and leaves become tea; fear, devotion, and a savior become God. This end product doesn’t have an existence independent of its parts. Believing it truly exists independently is the ([Location 255](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CS5KMG2&location=255)) - else. Thus Siddhartha discovered that impermanence does not mean death, as we usually think, it means change. ([Location 262](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CS5KMG2&location=262)) - If there is no blind hope, there is also no disappointment. If one knows that everything is impermanent, one does not grasp, and if one does not grasp, one will not think in terms of having or lacking, and therefore one lives fully. ([Location 265](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CS5KMG2&location=265))