"Enlightenment is like coming home
Everything is clear.......
Familiar!
If there is hesitation
Even a speck of doubt
It ain’t your home."
- Author Unknown
"The Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom claims that the Six Perfections are "bases for training." This means that they constitute a series of practices or "trainings" that guide practitioners toward the goal of enlightenment or awakening. These six "trainings" are the means or methods to that all-important end. But the perfections are much more than techniques. The are also the most fundamental dimensions of the goal of enlightenment. Enlightenment is defined in terms of these six qualities of human character; together they constitute the essential qualities of that ideal human state. The perfections, therefore, are the ideal, not just the means to it. Being generous, morally aware, tolerant, energetic, meditative, and wise is what it means for a Buddhist to be enlightened. If perfection in these six dimensions of human character is the goal, the enlightenment, understood in this Buddhist sense, would also be closely correlate to these particular practices. Recognizing this, one sutra says, "Enlightenment jus is the path and the path is enlightenment.: To be moving along the path of self-cultivation by developing the Six Perfections is the very meaning of "enlightenment.""
- Dale S. Wright, The Six Perfections, p. 4
The Ten Paramitas: Transformational Practices for Realizing an Enlightened Heart-Mind
How to Live a Good Life: Advice from Wise Persons
“What drains your spirit drains your body. What fuels your spirit fuels your body.”
- Caroline Myss, Anatomy of the Spirit
“Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! 'Have courage to use your own reason!'─ that is the motto of enlightenment.”
- Immanuel Kant, An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?
“I shall no longer be instructed by the Yoga Veda or the Aharva Veda, or the ascetics, or any other doctrine whatsoever. I shall learn from myself, be a pupil of myself; I shall get to know myself, the mystery of Siddhartha." He looked around as if he were seeing the world for the first time.”
- Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
“There is strong shadow where there is much light.”
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"The real meaning of enlightenment is to gaze with undimmed eyes on all darkness."
- Nikos Kazantzakis
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.”
"Always keep your mind as bright and clear as the vast sky, the great ocean, and the highest peak, empty of all thoughts. Always keep your body filled with light and heat. Fill yourself with the power of wisdom and enlightenment."
- Morihei Ueshiba
"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 man can control his mind he can find the way to enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him."
- Buddha
"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
"If I could define enlightenment briefly, I would say it is "the quiet acceptance of what is."
- Wayne Dyer
"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
"It is not easy to convey, unless one has experienced it, the dramatic feeling of sudden enlightenment that floods the mind when the right idea finally clicks into place. One immediately sees how many previously puzzling facts are neatly explained by the new hypothesis. One could kick oneself for not having the idea earlier, it now seems so obvious. Yet before, everything was in a fog.'
- Francis Crick
Our understanding of "enlightenment" varies like living in Paris, Tehran, Tokyo, Nashville, or Red Bluff varies.
How to Live a Good Life
Buddhism
Enlightenment
A Philosopher's Notebooks
Equanimity, Tranquility, Inner Peace
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