Craving for nirvana is obstacle to it?

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(One Timeless Witness) He meditated for 20 years [seeking moksha or liberation] then the Buddha said "stop." Bhava-taṇhā is "craving," which leads to "clinging" (upādāna) that results in disappointment, dissatisfaction, misery, suffering...not getting what one wants, getting what one doesn't want (dukkha).

Bhava-taṇhā ("craving for being" or "craving for becoming") [5], craving to be or  become something, to unite with an experience [16].

This is ego-related, states Buddhist scholar Peter Harvey, the eternal seeking of certain identity and desire for a certain type of rebirth [5].

This last donut will fulfill and satisfy me!

Other scholars explain that this type of craving is driven by the wrong view of Eternalism (eternal life, the idea that the soul never dies because something always survives, as if consciousness unchanged carries on, not realizing that what carries on through this "wandering on" or saṃsāra is an impersonal process clung to as "self" -- not an eternal soul, not an independent ego, not something personal, not a "self" or "soul" -- without actually living up to the definition of "self or soul" we assume) and about permanence [4, 17]. More

How to reach enlightenment here and now

Dhr. Seven, COMMENTARY FOR WISDOM QUARTERLY

What is the true nature of all things, of all phenomena? They are (1) impermanent, (2) unsatisfactory, and (3) impersonal (not-self).

But it is foolish to assume that this "impermanence" is eventual. It is in fact radical! From moment to moment, things do not stand. They constantly fall away. They are always arising, turning, and passing not only at every moment but at every submoment. (A "moment," say of a "mind-moment" or citta, there are three phases: arising, turning, passing. The exact same thing is true of physical particles.

This is what we do not understand, what we do not directly know-and-see, until we develop the path of purification and dispassionately look on at all phenomena (as explained in detail in "The Four Foundations of Mindfulness Discourse" or Satipatthana Sutta).

When we are finally able to see things (cittas and kalapas, mind-moments and material particles) behaving as they have always behaved when we were blind to and deluded about what was really there all along, the mind/heart automatically lets go. There is no effort to do so. Seeing their true nature, we stop clinging.

Furthermore, when we see that all things are utterly incapable of ever fulfilling, satisfying, or doing anything but being ultimately disappointing, we stop craving, stop expecting any new thing to be any different.

Moreover, when we finally know-and-see as it truly is that what we thought (assumed) was personal and self is not, what in the universe (with three spheres of sensual, fine material, and immaterial worlds -- with "heavenly" places in each) is there to cling to?

Why have we been holding on to suffering (dukkha, this unsteady, askew cartwheel making the road so bumpy and painful) and to things always hurtling towards destruction? It is exactly because we did not see, did not know.

I get it! Now I know and see!!

And now are we undeceived, having seen things as they really are and always have been, there is no "effort" to let go. Letting go happens naturally and one knows-and-sees the ultimate, nirvana. This process is "awakening" (bodhi, enlightenment).

Then it is as if everything -- all ignorance and darkness -- dissolves (nirodha), and light arises, and there is awakening out of painful ignorance to ultimate unending bliss. This is the bliss of nirvana, the highest happiness and peace. There is no use in describing it, but it can be directly experienced here and now, free of concepts and views.