Getting at Not Self

Chenrezig, The Buddha of Compassion

I hate to break it to your ego, but it is irrelevant. It will insist, insistently, that it is absolutely essential and that you would suffer far more, maybe even die, without it.

Getting at not self can be difficult because we usually occupy our sense of self so fully that it is hard to find where it ends and reality begins. From the Buddhist perspective, your ego prevents you from seeing reality.