The picture we present to ourselves of who we think we ought to be obscures who we really are.

The central premise of this book is that the Western psychological notion of what it means to have a self is flawed.

When we seek happiness through accumulation, either outside of ourselves-from other people, relationships, or material goods-or from our own self-development, we are missing the essential point. In either case we are trying to find completion. But according to Buddhism, such a strategy is doomed. Completion comes not from adding another piece to ourselves but from surrendering our ideas of perfection.

To free desire from the tendency to cling, we have to be willing to stumble over ourselves.

Meditation is not a means of forgetting the ego; it is a method of using the ego to observe and tame its own manifestations.

In building a path through the self to the far shore of awareness, we have to carefully pick our way through our own wilderness. If we can put our minds into a place of surrender, we will have an easier time feeling the contours of the land. We do not have to break our way through as much as we have to find our way around the major obstacles. We do not have to cure every neurosis, we just have to learn how not to be caught by them.

The picture we present to ourselves of who we think we ought to be obscures who we really are.