From Charlotte Joko Beck's collection of talks Now Zen (edited by Steve Smith), in "Beginning Zen Practice" (which also appears in her book Everyday Zen):

Enlightenment is not something you achieve. It is the absence of something. All your life you have been going forward after something, pursuing some goal. Enlightenment is dropping all that. But to talk about it is of little use. The practice has to be done by each individual. There is no substitute. We can read about it until we are a thousand years old and it won't do a thing for us. We all have to practice, and we have to practice with all of our might for the rest of our lives.

(cf. Giving Up Hope (2014-09-01), Goals and Failure (2014-12-13), Groundlessness (2015-02-27), Now and Here (2015-06-07), ...) - ^z - 2015-07-06