Robert A. F. Thurman:

The basis is wisdom. The human being from the Buddhist's point of view is a marvelous machine...is the most marvelous machine in the universe. The reason that human beings stress themselves out and stress each other out is because of their ignorance...because various ideologies and habits and cultural ideas, even religious ideas sometimes have persuaded them traditionally that there is something wrong with them.

Based on ignorance of the nature of reality they are creating themselves a negative situation out of a positive situation. From the Buddhist's point of view if you know your own reality, in a sense of you are a part of the relative world, there's no absolute you that is sort of some little isolated little core that is fighting its way against the universe.

Enlightenment means you see through this illusion of being you versus the universe and you realize that it is you as a part of the universe, you as a relativity with the universe. So suddenly, it's you in partnership with the universe. You then draw strength from the universe. Those of us who have still ignorance, since we're confused - Where are we? What are we doing? Is this helping me or not? Or what is going on? - We have so much energy invested in anxiety and stress and fear, we cannot enjoy ourselves even in the most enjoyable situations.