Nishijima on Enlightenment.


 

"Whenever we gain some clear insight into our real situation in life, it is a kind of enlightenment. Such insights are very important, but they are not the fundamental enlightenment of Buddhism. Enlightenment, in the Buddhist tradition, is not an intellectual discovery but a state of being or a state of body and mind. It is a state of momentary oneness with the world, a state in which dualistic interpretations fall away and the real qualities of all things are exposed. It is, in other words, the state in zazen." -- Gudo Nishijima Roshi

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