"We fixate on this, we fixate on that, but life is constantly changing — nothing stays, nothing lasts.
"When we are attached to the idea that the impermanent should be permanent, we find endless loss.
"Every aspect of your body and mind is impermanent: changing, changing, changing.
"Even when your knee hurts, it's not as bad as you think — your ego exaggerates the pain. It solidifies the feeling, makes it feel unchangeable, like iron. This is a totally wrong conception, a completely unrealistic interpretation. If you can realize this, the pain will be digested by your wisdom and disappear. Why? Because the pain you feel in your knee does not arise by itself but in combination with ego activity. When one of these elements disappears, the combination also disappears.
"If someone's giving you a hard time and your ego starts to hurt, instead of reacting, just take a look at what's going on. Think of how sound is simply coming out of the other person's mouth, entering your ear, and causing pain in your heart. If you think about this in the right way, it will make you laugh; you will see how ridiculous it is to get upset by something so insubstantial.
"We expect things that are changeable by nature not to change; we expect impermanent things to last forever. Then, when they do change, we get upset. Getting upset when something in your house breaks shows that you didn't really understand its impermanent nature."
