In the quest to understand where unsatisfactoriness comes from, we are often inclined to search for causes or people to blame. Ram Dass was the first to demonstrate to me the benefits of an alternative approach. This became the cornerstone of my understanding, that the search for causes has to lead eventually back to the individual. Although traumatic and terrible things may have occurred , it is the individual’s mind that perpetuates the suffering, and this mind can be trained to change. As long as we are struggling against the feeling, hoping to eliminate it by getting high or being cured, we are still attached. We can relieve unsatisfactoriness only by sharpening our focus and changing our perspective.

– Mark Epstein from ‘Going on Being’