Quotes About Enlightenment

Enlightenment is not only the end of suffering and of continuous conflict within and without, but also the end of the dreadful enslavement to incessant thinking.

Spiritual awakening is awakening from the dream of thought.

I love the Buddha's simple definition of enlightenment as "the end of suffering." There is nothing superhuman in that, is there? Of course, as a definition, it is incomplete. It only tells you what enlightenment is not: no suffering. But what's left when there is no more suffering? The Buddha is silent on that, and his silence implies that you'll have to find out for yourself.

Perceiving presence is what true awakening is all about.

The whole essence of Zen consists in walking along the razor's edge of Now - to be so utterly, so completely present that no problem, no suffering, nothing that is not who you are in your essence, can survive in you. In the Now, in the absence of time, all your problems dissolve. Suffering needs time: it cannot survive in the Now.

You see time as the means to salvation, whereas in truth it is the greatest obstacle to salvation. You think that you can't get there from where and who you are at this moment because you are not yet complete or good enough, but the truth is that here and now is the only point from where you can get there.

The present moment holds the key to liberation. But you cannot find the present moment as long as you are your mind.

Pažnja. Ovdje i sad. Probudi se.

All that is required to become free of the ego is to be aware of it, since awareness and ego are incompatible. Awareness is the power that is concealed within the present moment. This is why we may also call it Presence. The ultimate purpose of human existence, which is to say, your purpose, is to bring that power into this world.

If you cannot be at ease with yourself when you are alone, you will seek a relationship to cover up your unease. It will then reappear in some other form within the relationship, and you will probably hold your partner responsible for it. In the state of enlightenment, you *are* yourself. There is no self that you need to protect, defend, or feed anymore. When you are enlightened, there is one relationship you no longer have: the relationship with yourself.

If you remain in conscious connection with the Unmanifested, you value, love, and deeply respect the manifested and every life form in it as an expression of the One Life beyond form. You also know that every form is destined to dissolve again and that ultimately nothing out here matters all that much. You have "overcome the world," in the words of Jesus, or, as the Buddha put it, you have "crossed over to the other shore.

More consciousness means a lessening of the illusion of materiality.

A new dimension of consciousness has come in.

When you are fully conscious, drama does not come into your life anymore.

The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being. It is a state of connectedness with something immeasurable and indestructible, something that, almost paradoxically, is essentially you and yet is much greater than you. It is finding your true nature beyond name and form.

This is the disease. You believe that you are your mind. This is the delusion. The instrument has taken you over.

Can human beings lose the density of their conditioned mind structures and become like crystals or precious stones, so to speak, transparent to the light of consciousness?

You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free

También espero que llegue a otros muchos que encuentren su contenido digno de consideración, aunque puedan no estar listos para vivirlo o practicarlo plenamente. Es posible que en el futuro, la semilla que se sembró al leer este libro se fusione con la semilla de la iluminación que todo ser humano lleva dentro, y súbitamente esta semilla brote y se haga viva dentro de ellos.

Even the Buddha is said to have practiced body denial through fasting and extreme forms of asceticism for six years, but he did not attain enlightenment until after he had given up this practice.

Just as the sun is infinitely brighter than a candle flame, there is infinitely more intelligence in Being than in your mind.

At times you may have to take practical steps to protect yourself from deeply unconscious people. This you can do without making them into enemies. Your greatest protection, however, is being conscious.

Cuando la conciencia se libera de su identificación con las formas físicas y mentales, se vuelve lo que podemos llamar conciencia pura o iluminada, o presencia.

dimension comes a different kind of knowing