"The term "enlightenment" is used to translate a variety of words in various Asian languages that, while closely related, aren't exactly identical. Most fundamentally, enlightenment refers to the Pali and Sanskrit word bodhi, which is more literally "awakening." Enlightenment is our
true nature and our home, but the complexities of human life cause us to
forget. That forgetting feels like exile, and we make elaborate
structures of habit, conviction, and strategy to defend against its
desolation. But this condition isn't hopeless; it's possible to
dismantle those structures so we can return from an exile that was
always illusory to a home that was always right under our feet. For many of us, there
is something that pushes us and something that pulls us. We're pushed by
our own pain and the pain we see in the world around us; we're pulled
by intimations not random, not chance, but readily and
consistently present. It's possible to make ourselves available, in all
the hours of our days, to the grace we so long to be touched by, and to
spread that grace to the world around us."
(Roshi Joan Sutherland)
