Freedom from Stress (Nirvana)

Seven (WQ)
"Stress is a catchall word for any type of overwhelming emotion -- such as feeling scared, angry, or sad. Research has shown that strong emotions running through your body can lead to cognitive distortion," according to therapist Patti Carmalt-Vener. "One of the ways the body defends itself against these overwhelming emotions is sleepiness."

There are a few things we can do to make sure we're not inadvertently putting ourselves and [others] at risk: "Deal with the feelings... Process them. Take a minute, call someone and talk about how angry, sad, or fearful you are. Get it out." (Quoted in "Wheels" by Jennifer Hadley, Pasadena Weekly, 9/24/09).

Psychologists sometimes distinguish dis-tress and eustress, negative and pos-itive expressions of mental or physical strain. "Stress" is the way American abbot Ajahn Thanissaro (Wat Metta, California) translates the catchall Buddhist term for unhappiness dukkha.

In fact, dukkha is a multivalent term: It encompasses all unpleasant sensations from slight agitation to extreme agony. In a literal sense, it means being "off-center," or there being something unsatisfactory or not quite right. It is usually translated simply as "suffering," which is incorrect when what is meant to be expressed are the more subtle gradations of unpleasant sensation. In some instances, dukkha is simply a stressful feeling.

The entire Buddhist path may be defined succinctly as dukkha and nirvana, problem and solution. The Four Noble Truths are nothing more than an ancient Indian medical approach to illness:

1. What is the disease -- stress/suffering.
2. What is the cause -- ignorance/craving.
3. What is the solution -- nirvana.
4. What is way to the solution -- magga.

Teachings centered on the final and permanent eradication of stress, that is, of ALL forms of suffering. That enlightened condition is called nirvana. Oddly, to most Westerners, nirvana is not a noun. It is not a person, place, or thing. Phenomenal objects in Samsara are composite things. They are utterly dependent for their very temporary existence on supporting causes and conditions (as explained under the heading Dependent Origination).

Nirvana (Pali, nibbana) is, in fact, a verb. It would more correct to say not that one "enters" nirvana but rather that one is "nibbanered." That is, the craving (tanha), passions (greed, hatred, delusion, and fear), and mental defilements that give rise to suffering are slaked, cooled, calmed, quenched, disentangled, and undone. Suffering is a thing that only exists when its causes and conditions exist. Without them, there is only nirvana. Nirvana is quite literal, more so than most scholars and students imagine.

THE ULTIMATE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU COMPLETELY FREE

Meditators and auditors (those who listen to the Dharma and enter the stream through hearing) are quite literally touched by nirvana, washed over and calmed. The liberating truth is seen as both light and knowledge arise. Wisdom purifies the individual -- who by realizing Three Great Truths encounters liberation in stages of enlightenment.

Since ignorance (and all the craving, aversion, fear, and delusion that spring from it) was always at root the problem, the Ultimate Truth, indeed, sets one free of all stress and suffering.

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