When I examined my difficulties with too much newness all at once, I could see ego-self as a process, not as a solid thing. I was not able to allow all my previous identities to die at once. I needed time. I needed to work through the layers. I accepted that the roles I wished to toss onto the pyre were fabricated, not inherent to my being. But they could not be extracted as if with a surgical procedure. I had grown into them, and I needed to grow out of them.

— Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

from In Love with the World: A Monk's Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying