An enlightened person doesn't know it all. Enlightenment simply means walking beyond this and all worlds into nirvana, which is beyond knowledge and ignorance.
Liberation means no rebirth. Now, does that mean you don't reincarnate? Well, you never did reincarnate.
Look at the big picture of the wheel of life. Above it, there is a Buddha. He is pointing, not towards the wheel, but away from it. He is indicating that there is something else - nirvana.
An enlightened person lives in the world, passes through the ten thousand states of mind, but they are not bound by them. They can go beyond perception.
Bodhisattva is enlightened in the Buddhist philosophy, religion, tradition. He's enlightened. It's fine - I don't really fight it - but many people use the term 'zen' and terms like 'nirvana,' 'enlightenment' in an almost superficial way. It's not that complicated.
There is no final stage in nirvana. Nirvana is beyond definition. It is not quantifiable.
If I could reincarnate as another player, I might want to reincarnate as Thierry Henry at the top of his game.
If you sit with an enlightened teacher and silent your mind as they go into nirvana, suchness, the pure power of their aura will bring you on a journey into the world of perfection.
You reincarnate forever because you exist forever. You can't die. You can't be born, your essence that is. You are on a big wheel.
When Nirvana hit it big, it was overwhelming because we were part of the counterculture. Nirvana didn't go to the mainstream - the mainstream came to Nirvana.
Go directly to Nirvana. Don't pass go - or you'll have kids, you'll grow old together, you'll be born into another realm where you'll forget that there was even nirvana.
Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.
An enlightened person is the richest person possible, but his richness comes from surrender, not from fight. He does not... he has not any conflict with the whole. He has fallen in harmony, he is in a harmonia.
The essential premise of Buddhism is that there is enlightenment, there is nirvana. Beyond this world, beyond all worlds, there's something radiant, perfect and eternal.
My dream was to have a slide bannister so I could slide down and go out the door to work.
Focusing on an enlightened teacher is a doorway. It is not a person. We are focusing on the light that passes through them. We are moving through them into the planes of light and eventually to nirvana.