We suffer not because we are basically bad or deserve to be punished but because of three tragic misunderstandings. First, we expect that what is always in the process of change should be graspable and predictable. Because we mistake what is impermanent to be permanent, we suffer. Second, we proceed as if we are separate from everything else, as if we are a fixed identity, when our true situation is egoless. Because we mistake the openness of our being for a solid, irrefutable self, we suffer. Third, we look for happiness in all the wrong places. The Buddha called this habit “mistaking
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