Quotes About Enlightenment

Enlightenment is finding that there is nothing to find. Enlightenment is to come to know that there is nowhere to go. Enlightenment is the understanding that this is all, that this is perfect, that this is it. Enlightenment is not an achievement, it is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve, nowhere to go. You are already there - you have never been away. You cannot be away from there. God has never been missed. Maybe you have forgotten, that's all. Maybe you have fallen asleep, that's all.

The very desire to seek spiritual enlightenment is in fact nothing but the grasping tendency of the ego itself, and thus the very search for enlightenment prevents it. The 'perfect practice' is therefore not to search for enlightenment but to inquire into the motive for seeking itself. You obviously seek in order to avoid the present, and yet the present alone holds the answer: to seek forever is to miss the point forever. You always already are enlightened Spirit, and therefore to seek Spirit is simply to deny Spirit.

Enlightenment is not something you achieve. It is the absence of something. All your life you have been going forward after something, pursuing some goal. Enlightenment is dropping all that.

Enlightenment is man's leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another. Such immaturity is self-caused if it is not caused by lack of intelligence, but by lack of determination and courage to use one's intelligence without being guided by another. Sapere Aude! Have the courage to use your own intelligence! is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.

Enlightenment is the understanding that this is all, that this is perfect, that this is it. Enlightenment is not an achievement, it is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve, nowhere to go.

Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.

The pursuit of enlightenment is for the purpose of the world, not merely for the purpose of the individual. Practices for enlightenment must lead to action in the world.

Since the days of Peter the Great, Russians have been maybe Europeans who didn't share in the enlightenment and the reformation, or are they Mongol Asians with the European veneer. And they've gone back and forth.

They can't stop you if, in your heart, you seek enlightenment, empowerment, balance and knowledge.

To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.

I simply go with what works. And what works is the healthy skepticism embodied in the scientific method. Believe me, if the Bible had ever been shown to be a rich source of scientific answers and enlightenment, we would be mining it daily for cosmic discovery.

Meditation is the quickest path to enlightenment.

By renouncing samsara, we renounce our habitual grasping, unhappy minds. And by renouncing samsara, we embrace our potential for enlightenment.

Pain is the fuel that lights the flame of our enlightenment

The network of enlightenment is a very wide network. It's not relegated to a simple type of being. It's not the network of the goody-goods.

Kundalini can be transmitted. A person who is very adept at the enlightenment process can transmit it. Whether you feel it or not, it's affecting you in a very positive way.

If you learn to lead your life strategically and strongly, you can overcome the opposition. But running away, you never overcome anything. The pathway to enlightenment is for the warrior, the samurai.

Without enlightenment, everything in life is harsh. Sooner or later you see everyone you love die, unless you die first, of course. This causes you to suffer.

Understanding others is knowledge, Understanding oneself is enlightenment; Conquering others is power, Conquering oneself is strength.

Enlightenment, the old teachers say, adds nothing, except maybe the recognition of a need for and a commitment to the work that still needs to be done.

Simply by performing good actions and thinking good thoughts you will not attain enlightenment. It takes something more.

Painting is a means of self-enlightenment.

I want to offer the possibility that Jesus was truly, as he proclaimed, a savior. Not the savior, not the one and only Son of God. Rather Jesus embodied the highest level of enlightenment.

This is what our yoga practice is trying to accomplish. Not white light descending from heaven and engulfing you, not energy released from the base of your spine going up through your crown chakra so you become a human lightening bolt, not a halo floating on top of your head. Simply heightened states of awareness, enlightenment, becoming more and more aware which gives more and more insight, which brings wisdom and gives choice. With that wisdom and choice, we become the masters of our destiny and at peace in our life.

The road to enlightenment is paved with authenticity, not imitation.

Throughout history, every period of enlightenment has been accompanied by darkness, pushing in opposition. Such are laws of nature and balance.

Once you have personally experienced enlightenment, you will see beyond the ocean of death to the everlasting shores of immortality.

Although we have no actual written communications from the world of emptiness, we have some hints or suggestions about what is going on in that world, and that is, you might say, enlightenment. When you see plum blossoms or hear the sound of a small stone hitting bamboo, that is a letter from the world of emptiness.

No one's life is totally morbid. Even on a subtle scale there's little flashes of enlightenment and of happiness and joy.

You may have thousands of lives to go between now and before you're a real hard-core seeker of enlightenment, hardcore meaning you just love it.

Consumer goods become enlightenment, relationships, anything! It doesn't really matter because infinity exists in everything. "Greater than the greatest, smaller than the smallest, the self dwells in the hearts of all," that is the Upanishads.

Duality is the real root of our suffering and of all our conflicts. All our concepts and beliefs, no matter how profound they may seem, are like nets which trap us in dualism. When we discover our limits we have to try to overcome them, untying ourselves from whatever type of religious, political, or social conviction may contain us. We have to abandon such concepts as 'enlightenment', 'the nature of the mind', and so on, until we no longer neglect to integrate our knowledge with our actual existence.

It is necessary to disassociate oneself from those who would interfere with your success in enlightenment, in your career, in your life. They are not worth it.

...photographers who carry 60 pounds of equipment up a hill to photograph a view are not suffering enough, although their whining causes enough suffering among their listeners. No, if they really expect us to respect their search for enlightenment and artistic expression, in [the] future they will drag the equipment up the hill by their genitals and take the view with a tripod leg stuck through their foot.

Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can.

If there's any possibility for enlightenment, it's right now, not at some future time. Now is the time.

Neither my life of luxury in the palace -nor- my life as ascetic in the forest were ways to enlightenment.

If we only identify with the mortal world, then we identify with a level of scarcity and lack and brokenness, and that will be our experience. But if we shift our experience of self-identification - and this is what enlightenment is - from the body-self to the spiritual-self, then we place ourselves under an entirely different set of possibilities and probabilities.

One should study the Bible alongside other intellectual traditions - such as British constitutionalism, Enlightenment liberalism, and classical republicanism - in order to truly understand the American founding.

Enlightenment, don't know what it is. It's up to you, the way you think.

I would encourage you to follow the pathway to enlightenment, to learn to meditate, to practice mindfulness, and not to really care what anybody thinks about you, including yourself.

The Protestant reformation was an attempt to recast the Christian faith in terms of the new learning of the 16th century, the enlightenment learning. It was the first time that the Christian church did not have the capacity to keep itself unified as it recast itself, so it split into Protestant and Catholic traditions.

Everything aids everything, because all things are a reflection of the Buddha mind, of the mind of Enlightenment.

Right now we have obtained a human rebirth and have the opportunity to attain enlightenment through Dharma practice, so if we waste this precious opportunity in meaningless activities there is no greater loss and no greater foolishness.

If western culture is shown to be rich it is because, even before the Enlightenment, it has tried to "dissolve" harmful simplifications through inquiry and the critical mind.

We who don't want radical Islam to spread must compete with the agents of radical Islam. I want to see what would happen if Christians, feminists and Enlightenment thinkers were to start proselytizing in the Muslim community.

This watchfulness, this witnessing is the ultimate secret of creating a religious life, of creating a life of transcendence, a life of spirituality, of enlightenment, of buddhahood.

Zen approaches it from the practical side of life-that is, to work out Enlightenment in life itself.