enlightenment

IPA: ɛnɫˈaɪtʌnmʌnt

An act of enlightening, or the state of being enlightened or instructed.
A concept in spirituality, philosophy and psychology related to achieving clarity of perception, reason and knowledge.
A 17th- and 18th-century philosophical movement in European history; the Age of Enlightenment or Age of Reason emphasizing rationalism.

Examples of "enlightenment" in Sentences

It will be interesting to see how the next generation of Buddhist teachers and practitioners deal with the cultural history and baggage of the word "enlightenment."
I love the way Eckhart Tolle puts it: "The word 'enlightenment' conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment ... it is really just your natural state of felt oneness with Being."
D.T. Suzuki used the word "enlightenment" to translate the Japanese term satori¸ and his recounting of the enlightenment stories from the Zen koan literature made quite a splash among intellectual elites at the time.
The word "enlightenment" in a Buddhist context has been used so frequently and in so many ways, many people may not realize that this use of the word began fairly recently, and has a complex cultural and literary history.
I am, moreover, sceptical _because the very persons to whom to-day we have to look to effect the sexual enlightenment of children, are themselves to a great extent also in need of enlightenment_; and in respect of many of the questions about which the child has to be enlightened, no general harmony of scientific opinion can as yet be said to obtain.
Though 19th century translators of Buddhist texts sometimes used the word "enlightenment" to refer to Gautama's moment of spiritual awakening on seeing the morning star, the first time a large number of general English readers saw the word used as a spiritual term was with the publication Essays on Zen Buddhism First Series by D.T. Suzuki in the 1930s.