enlightenment

Enlightenment means rising above thought, not falling back to a level below thought, the level of an animal or a plant. In the enlightened state, you still use your thinking mind when needed, but in a much more focused and effective way than before.

Enlightenment is, in the end, nothing more than the natural state of being.

The most intimate question we can ask, and the one that has the most spiritual power, is this: What or who am I?

You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You can find yourself by coming into the present.

You find God the moment you realize that you don't need to seek God.

As far as inner transformation is concerned, there is nothing you can do about it. You cannot transform yourself, and you certainly cannot transform your partner or anybody else. All you can do is create a space for transformation to happen, for grace and love to enter.

To be identified with your mind is to be trapped in time: the compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation.

The end of suffering happens in this very moment, whether you're watching a terrorist attack or doing the dishes. And compassion begins at home. Because I don't believe my thoughts, sadness can't exist. That's how I can go to the depths of anyone's suffering, if they invite me, and take them by the hand and walk them out of it into the sunlight of reality.

I've taken that walk myself.

If I say, if I talk about, 'I want to be enlightened...' it implies a future. And there isn't any.

So there's only transcendence in the moment. Nobody can be transcended forever. That's why I say, "Who cares if you're enlightened forever?"