#enlightenment

"Wisdom comes alone through suffering."

"The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp."

"What drains your spirit drains your body. What fuels your spirit fuels your body."

"With me, illusions are bound to be shattered. I am here to shatter all illusions. Yes, it will irritate you, it will annoy you - that's my way of functioning and working. I will sabotage you from your very roots! Unless you are totally destroyed as a mind, there is no hope for you."

"Never allow your ego to diminish your ability to listen."

"Enlightenment is light."

"Suffering just means you’re having a bad dream. Happiness means you’re having a good dream. Enlightenment means getting out of the dream altogether."

"Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel."

"I've learned .... That opportunities are never lost; someone will take the ones you miss."

"To be taught to read—what is the use of that, if you know not whether what you read is false or true? To be taught to write or to speak—but what is the use of speaking, if you have nothing to say? To be taught to think—nay, what is the use of being able to think, if you have nothing to think of? But to be taught to see is to gain word and thought at once, and both true."

"A person must earn enlightenment, Eragon. It is not handed down to you by others, regardless of how revered they be."

"We think a wise person is someone who solves problems. Truth is, a wise person is someone who avoids problems."

"Education leads to enlightenment. Enlightenment opens the way to empathy. Empathy foreshadows reform."

"The closer you come to knowing that you alone create the world of your experience, the more vital it becomes for you to discover just who is doing the creating."

"Your own Self-Realization is the greatest service you can render the world."

"How could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?"

"What can oppose the decline of the west is not a resurrected culture but the utopia that is silently contained in the image of its decline."

"Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen."

"Philosophy cannot be extinguished, though men will try ... The spirit seeks the light, that is its nature. It wishes to return to its origin, and must forever try to reach enlightenment."

"But people of the deepest understanding look within, distracted by nothing. Since a clear mind is the Buddha, they attain the understanding of a Buddha without using the mind."