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* oh yeah, about the quotes around the word “enlightenment”.
Whenever I'm writing formally, I try to always remember to put quotes around the word “enlightenment”.
This is intended to indicate that this word is NOT a technical word, and that it does not have a fixed meaning, but instead conveys a kind of cloud of possible meanings, depending on the context.
A word like nirvana (or as I often prefer it, nibbana, which is the older Pali version of the word, a somewhat more strict idea than that expressed in the more modern verison, nirvana) is a technical word that describes a specific type of “enlightenment”.
The word “enlightenment” itself is an artifact of the translation of eastern texts several centuries ago in europe. It's a western word, with no direct equivalent in the original eastern texts.
When I'm talking informally, with people that I hope know enough to understand that the word “enlightenment” does NOT have a real specific meaning, then I'll drop the quotes.
Because lots of times informal, emotional, and poetic talk is very important in really getting communication happening between people.
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