When we are angry, when we are excited, when we are depressed, when we are elated, we are completely submerged in and identified with those thoughts and feelings. This is why we suffer. We suffer because we are completely identified with our thoughts and feelings and we think this is me. This is who I am. Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo
About This Quote

The Buddha was speaking about how we should not be attached to our thoughts and feelings. We need not become obsessed with them. We see the world as it is, not as we would like it to be. When we are completely identified with our thoughts and feelings, that is when we suffer the most.

We suffer because we cannot experience anything else. When we are elated, depressed, angry, excited or any other type of emotion, our minds are completely saturated by the thoughts and feelings themselves. Our minds are so preoccupied with these states of mind that nothing else can occur there.

Thus, we experience ourselves as nothing more than the state of mind itself.

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