A Choice Between Outer Pleasure and Inner Freedom
If we had to make a choice between outer pleasure, comfort, and peace, and inner freedom and ultimate happiness, we should choose inner peace. If we could find that within, then the outer would take care of itself. Even when we have a comfortable and pleasant life externally, if our inner peace is shattered, or disturbed, we are not able to enjoy all that we have in our outer life. To make that transformation we find--when we think only of ourselves, and hold on to things, consider ourselves and our happiness as the most important thing--that it is the ego and its clinging that disturbs both the outer and the inner happiness. Even if we have a well-organized outer life, it can be very difficult for us to find inner happiness because we can never be satisfied so long as we have not cut the attachments due to ego. There is no end to it--it wants more and more--without any limit. The ego is insatiable.
~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Spring 1993; from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book
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