Before enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water.
After enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water.

Zen saying
   

If we pretend to be more enlightened than we really are, we will miss
an opportunity to heal ourselves.  Admitting our limitations can make us
feel vulnerable, yet it is very freeing.  We just have to be ourselves as
we are now, accepting the mixture of enlightened awareness and human
limitation that is in each of us.  Through this self-acceptance,
we find a deep peace and self-love.

Shakti Gawain

      
There are many paths to enlightenment.
Be sure to take one with a heart.

Lao Tzu
  

If we demand enlightenment, it hides. . . . All that we can
do is make ourselves enlightenment-prone.  We learn to
treasure the possibility of awakening in all moments and
circumstances.  We learn to simplify and cultivate the
receptivity of heart that can be touched by profound
understanding.  We learn to listen deeply and discover
stillness amid the movement in our world.

Christina Feldman
   

Enlightenment must come little by little, otherwise it would overwhelm.

Idries Shah
   

Nirvana or lasting enlightenment or true spiritual growth
can be achieved only through persistent exercise of real love.

M. Scott Peck
   
   
    

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions
of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

Thomas Jefferson

  

You may have expected
that enlightenment would
come Zap! instantaneous
and permanent.  This is
unlikely. After the first
"ah-ha" experience,
it can be thought of
as the thinning of
a layer of clouds.

Ram Dass

   

To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand.

Jose Ortega y Gasset
    

Even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to go astray.

Sen Sen Ming
   

    
Everybody wants to get enlightened but nobody wants to change.
This is the simple, daunting truth that has been staring back at me
from the eyes of countless seekers over the years.  "I really want
to get enlightened," they insist.  "But are YOU ready to CHANGE
now?" I ask.  "What?" is the inevitable response—surprised and
even slightly stunned.  And I repeat, "Are YOU ready to CHANGE
now?"  What follows is always a strange and surreal moment of
ambiguity, confusion, and backpedaling.
"But I thought you wanted to get enlightened... "

Andrew Cohen
   

Words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels.

Hazrat Inayat Khan
   

Enlightenment means taking full responsibility for your life.

William Blake

To see the world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
   

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If one wishes to be sure of the road one treads on,
one must close one's eyes and walk in the dark.

Saint John of the Cross
   
   

Enlightenment is not about becoming divine.  Instead it's about
becoming more fully human. . . It is the end of ignorance.

Lama Surya Das
   

To the illumined man or woman, a clod of dirt, a stone, and gold are the same.

Bhagavad Gita
   

   

It's in the entrails of the earth, not on its surface, that you can find diamonds and gold.
It's in going into the darkness that we find enlightenment.

Robert Scaer
    
To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring
peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind.  If a
person can control his or her mind, he or she can find the way to
Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him or her.

The Buddha
   

There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.

Thich Nhat Hanh
   
   

If I could define enlightenment briefly I would say it is "the quiet acceptance of what is."

Wayne Dyer
   
The real meaning of enlightenment is to gaze with undimmed eyes on all darkness.

Nikos Kazantzakis
   

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water.
The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken.
Although its light is wide and great,
The moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide.
The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.

Dogen
   

You never know where enlightenment may come from.  Be always open,
on the look-out and ready for it.  Usually it is a click, something which falls
into place after a long time of gestation.  The most unexpected event
or person can trigger it off.

Robert Muller
    

The attainment of enlightenment from ego's point of view is extreme death,
the death of self, the death of me and mine, the death of the watcher.
It is the ultimate and final disappointment.

Chogyam Trungpa
   

One does not become enlightened by imagining fingers of light,
but by making the darkness conscious.

Carl Jung
   
Enlightened space, the place of unconditional love, cannot be achieved until
and unless one is willing to be comfortable with paradox and confusion.

Ralph Walker
   

Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment.

Dogen
   

   

Going back to the origin is called peace; it means reversion to destiny.
Reversion to destiny is called eternity.
They who know eternity are called enlightened.

Lao Tzu
   
In this world, aspirants may find enlightenment by two different paths.
For the contemplative is the path of knowledge;
for the active is the path of selfless action.

The Bhagavad Gita
   

Liberation and enlightenment do not exist outside of your own self.
We need only open our eyes to see that we ourselves are the very
essence of liberation and enlightenment.  All dharmas, all beings,
contain the nature of full enlightenment within themselves.  Don't look
for it outside yourself.  If you shine the light of awareness on your
own self, you will realize enlightenment immediately.

Thich Nhat Hanh
   

Those who think that any action can lead to their "enlightenment"
are turning their backs on the truth:  they are thinking that there is
a "he" or a "she" there to be "enlightened," whereas "enlightenment"
is a name for the state wherein there is no separate individual at all,
and which is that of all sentient beings, a name for what they are,
but which cannot be recognized by anyone who believes
him or herself to be an autonomous individual.

Wei Wu Wei (Terence Gray)
   
   
I was sitting in a train when it happened, crossing the Punjab to Pathankot and reading a book on Buddhism.  And sitting there in that crowded train, with all its heat and smell, suddenly it was utterly self-evident that I did not exist in the way I thought I did.  And this realization brought with the experience which I can only describe as a kernel of popcorn popping.  It was as though the inside came out on the outside and I looked with wonder and joy at everything.  And the sense then was of unutterable relief, of "I don't need to do anything with the self, I don't need to improve it or make it good or sacrifice it or crucify it--I don't need to do anything because it isn't even there. . . ."  There was an immense feeling of release, and with that release came at once, immediately, a feeling that it was release into action.

Joanna Macy
    

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Enlightenment does not consist of pretending to be where we are not;
enlightenment means being in touch with where we are and being willing
to learn what God would have us learn from it.  Sometimes the purpose
of a day is to merely feel our sadness, knowing that as we do we allow
whole layers of grief, like old skin cells, to drop off us.

Marianne Williamson
   

Enlightenment is one’s leaving one's 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.

Immanuel Kant
   

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark;
the real tragedy is when adults are afraid of the light.

Plato
   
One of the core meanings of enlightenment is liberation from false and
spurious value attachments that blind you to your true essence.  When
and if I learn that I am ultimately my mind and my manner of using it;
when and if I understand that ego is only the internal experience of
consciousness, the ultimate center of awareness, I am free.

Nathaniel Branden
Self-Esteem Every Day