The ground is shaky but you cannot fool yourself

long shadows (early morning version), originally uploaded by emdot.

You Cannot Fool Yourself

When we sit and practice, we begin to realize what is known as the transparency and impermanence of time and space. We realize how much we are dwelling on our little things and that we cannot catch any of it and build a house on it. We cannot even lay the foundation. The whole thing keeps shifting under our feet and under our seat. The rug is being pulled out from under us completely, simply from that experience of working with ourselves in our practice. When we realize that we cannot catch hold of phenomena at all, that is what is known as tondam, or "absolute truth." There is an absolute quality to the fact that we cannot fool ourselves. We can try to fool our teacher, who tells us to sit; and we might think that we can fool the dharma, which says, "Go sit. That is the only way." But we cannot fool ourselves. We cannot fool our essence. The ground we are sitting on cannot be fooled."

— Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche