If you want to be free,
Get to know your real self.
It has no form, no appearance, no root,
No basis, no abode, but is lively and buoyant.
It responds with versatile facility, but its function
Cannot be located; when you look for it you become
Further from it. When you seek it
You turn away from it all the more.
- Rinzai (d.~867)
the finger that points towards the moon is not the moon
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To return to the root
Is to find the meaning;
To pursue appearances
Is to miss the source.
At the moment of inner enlightenment
There is a going beyond
Appearance and emptiness.
The changes that appear
To occur in the empty world
We call real only
Because of our ignorance.
- Seng-Ts’an (d.606)
@moonbus saidI would say that enlightenment is the ability (learned or natural) to see past the mundane. For the mundane is common and obvious, while enlightenment allows one to see what is not so common or obvious. It enables man to ascend beyond his nature as monkeys scrabbling in the dirt.
Enlightenment is the steady mindfulness that pain is unavoidable but suffering is optional.
René Descartes said, "Je pense, donc je suis."
This is enlightenment.
@medullah saidI like rookie's answer. The realisation that we know things that we don't know is one of the most fascinating and difficult concepts in human psychology. We carry memories that can influence our actions and yet we can't always access them or remember that they are there. We carry the archetypal substrates of thoughts not yet realised and dreams not yet dreamt, genetic material to guide us as a species. Is a part of the journey to enlightenment within the realisation of that material that is known, but not yet known? Possibly not yet known, but already influencing our journey so in another way known as well.
@Rajk999
I'd ask him another question just to see if the answer was as entertaining.
Consider the communication of bees. Their complex dances appear beyond their capacity to teach and learn. They are just found within themselves. Then consider the person with a profound learning disability who, despite no compatible ability to learn discovers an incredible talent for playing the piano within themselves.
@suzianne saidTo see the world in a grain of sand and experience eternity in an hour.
I would say that enlightenment is the ability (learned or natural) to see past the mundane. For the mundane is common and obvious, while enlightenment allows one to see what is not so common or obvious. It enables man to ascend beyond his nature as monkeys scrabbling in the dirt.
René Descartes said, "Je pense, donc je suis."
This is enlightenment.