Enlightenment is a contradictory idea because it stands on the border of thought and non-thought. It is the exit from thought, but in that exit from thought there is the recognition that the very idea of 'exit' was itself a thought, and thus that there was never any exit, because there was never any entrance. The insight destroys itself. And yet enlightenment can also be viewed usefully as a series of these very recognitions. The mental habits that chain one in thought, to the belief that one is a doing, experiencing, decision-making person... one attempts to light these on fire through self-inquiry and surrender. When in fact the habits are 'dry enough' -- meaning weak enough -- to 'catch fire' once and for all, they result in enlightenments so continuous they cannot be called enlightenments at all.