What is Enlightenment?

Enlightenment is the opposite of Ignorance.

For example:
Overpopulation is Ignorance
starvation is ignorance
murder is ignorance
persecution is ignorance


So, Enlightenment is the opposite of all things ignorant

The best example of enlightenment I found in my own wife when her mother died.
The Tibetan Lamas I had studied with in the U.S., India and Nepal had described what
Enlightenment was. Though I had experienced what it was and seen it in people myself,
the most profound difference in anyone I met in their lives was one day when my wife stopped
talking. I began to be concerned in the afternoon as she hadn't said a word to me that day. She was
gardening out side (something she rarely does) and I went out and asked her what was wrong.

This is what she said to me, "I see absolutely everything in the world both good and bad in a way I never did before and I am completely overwhelmed by my experience of it." My response was: "Oh. This is what the Lamas told me enlightenment was." She looked at me with a look of horror in her eyes and said, "I don't like it!" I said back to her, "You don't have to like it, you just have to know this is the way things really are." Once again she said to me, "I really don't like it! I don't want to see all this!" and again I said to her, "Mechanically, you are seeing all life for what it really is. It is like understanding the engine of a car. You don't have to like it but it is what life is exactly with all it's good and bad ongoing. Knowing this will help you and every person you ever meet."

After this I noticed she took to heart everything I had said and became after that the most helpful person to every being both human and animal I have ever met. She took her enlightenment to heart and acted on it ongoing to help all beings in remarkable ways. This is enlightenment.