"Enlightenment is the realization, the lived experience, that we are made of pure consciousness; that pure consciousness is our fundamental nature and our ultimate reality; and that everything else in the universe is also made of pure consciousness, so that our own being is fundamentally unified with all of nature. As one fourth-century Chinese sage put it, "Everything in the universe is one and the same root as my own self."
In enlightenment, we experience life from the vantage point of that root. We experience our own self as unbroken consciousness, pervading our body and our environment. This means that there is a continuity between our inner and outer perception. We have a sense of vast space, as if all our perceptions were one single tapestry of reflections in a single mirror.
We feel that we are made of clear, empty space, finer than air, unbounded and motionless. Within this vast space moves the changing progression of our thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions. I call this unbroken, pervasive dimension fundamental consciousness.
Before we realize fundamental consciousness, we identify ourselves as our sensations, feelings, perceptions, ideas, memories. But when we realize fundamental consciousness, we recognize that these discrete, transitory experiences come and go within the fundamental ground that is our true identity."

~ by Judith Blackstone.