About NIRVANA (What the Buddha Taught)

Ven. Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, Chapter IV: The Third Noble Truth, pp. 40-44 (ahandfulofleaves.org) edited by Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly

"What will happen to Him after death, nirvana, right?" - "That question is devoid of wisdom."

.

Dry land? What are you talking about, Turtle?

Nirvana cannot be completely explained with words, because human language is too poor to express the real nature of ultimate reality. Language is used by human beings to express things and ideas related to their experience using these sense organs and this mind. A supramundane experience like glimpsing nirvana does not fall in that category. But useful things can be said, and the wise may understand. For example, the fish had no words or ideas in their vocabulary when the turtle said it had just walked on dry land. "Sure you did!" laughed the fish. "You mean you swam on dry land." The turtle tried to explain that one cannot swim on dry land because it is not wet or fluid. "You mean like mud," asked the fish. The turtle struggled, "A little like mud but not wet or fluid." Then the fish said, "Oh, you mean complete nothingness?" "No, not nothingness, but there's nothing here I can really compare it to."

Ha ha, that turtle's so stupid! Isn't he stupid?

The fish asked offered comparisons then insisted the turtle was deluded, that dry land must be wet and fluid like the lake, cool, with waves, and that one must be able to swim there -- or it must be nothingness. The turtle finally exclaimed, "Well that may be, friends, that may be" and again disappeared to walk on dry land. The fish were perplexed.

~⇆~

Words about nirvana

"Abiding in the Absolute" is Hinduism.

Some popular inaccurately phrased expressions like, "The Buddha entered into nirvana or parinirvana after death" have given rise to many imaginary speculations about nirvana.

There are some who say, "after the nirvana of the Buddha" instead of "after the parinirvana of the Buddha."

"After the nirvana of the Buddha" has no meaning. The expression is unknown in Buddhist texts. It is always "after the parinirvana of the Buddha."

The Buddha and all other fully-enlightened individuals (called arahants) do not "die." For them there is no death. What we commonly call death is always followed by rebirth.

Having realized the "deathless" (amata, amrita), which is a synonym for nirvana, they -- finding no more fuel of attraction, aversion, or delusion -- go out, are quenched, lay down the burden of ignorance.

If not "who" then what goes out? Ultimately, only ignorance itself goes out. This happens by virtue of the fact that wisdom illuminates reality. For instance, when light comes "in," what goes out? Only darkness goes out. So as wisdom arises, only the darkness of ignorance is dispelled.

Maybe nirvana is a great "void" in space.

Nirvana is a verb -- cooling -- not a noun, not a "person, place, or thing." It is also called the "unconditioned element" (asankhata dhatu) in a universe where everything else is a conditioned thing (a composite composed of constituent parts, depending on those parts for its existence).

People will necessarily misunderstand this, and according to their habit of craving or aversion, will misconceive of nirvana as annihilation and nothingness or continuation and eternal existence. What else could it be but one of these extremes?

• Nirvana is neither death (annihilation-ism) nor immortality (eternalism). "Deathlessness" (amrita) does not mean "eternal existence" -- because, in an ultimate sense, actual existence is not what is happening now. What is happening now is illusory existence. So there is nothing that could be annihilated other than ignorance itself, in ultimate terms, and there is nothing (no self) that could actually wanders through samsara. In conventional terms, of course, it will seem otherwise.

And all people, unless they are very careful about their wisdom, will find it impossible to imagine that both of these "common sense" views (death vs. eternal life or annihilation vs. immortality) or logical deductions are utterly wrong. An explanation of anatta (not-self) explains WHY they are wrong. The Middle Way rediscovered by the historical Buddha avoids both extremes, both wrong views.

The moment we hear the phrase that "the Buddha entered into nirvana or parinirvana," we take nirvana to be a realm, heaven, void, state, or a position in which there is some sort of existence and try to imagine it in terms of the senses of the word "existence" as it is known to us.

The popular expression "entered into nirvana" has no equivalent in the original texts. There is no such thing as "entering into nirvana after death." Nirvana, the deathless, has no death. Samsara (cyclical rebirth) has death; it is inseparably bound up with it.

The word parinibbuto is used to denote the passing of the Buddha or any arahant, an fully enlightened individual, who has realized nirvana. It does not mean "entering into nirvana."

Parinibbuto simply means "fully passed away," "fully blown out," "fully extinguished" because the Buddha and other arahants have gone beyond rebirth after passing away. So now another question arises: "What happens to the Buddha or the arahant after 'death,' after parinirvana?" This comes under the category of unanswered questions (avjakata) that are better set aside.

• The question itself is wrong as what is happening is not "death." Moreover, what is happening while "alive" or "existing" is not what is happening, and the arahant having realized that no more feeds the illusory fire. But we do, so there is confusion for us.

Even when the Buddha spoke about this, he indicated that no words in our vocabulary could express what happens to an arahant after passing away. In reply to a Parivrajaka named Vaccha, the Buddha said that terms like "born" or "not born" do not apply in the case of an arahant, any arahant, because those things — the Five Aggregates or "heaps" of matter, sensation, perception, mental formations, and consciousness — with which terms like "born" and "not born" are associated, are completely uprooted, never to arise again after parinirvana.

An arahant after passing away is often compared metaphorically to a fire gone out when the supply of fuel is over, or to the flame of a lamp gone out when wick and oil are consumed.

Here it should be clearly and distinctly understood, without confusion, that what is compared to a fire or flame gone out is not nirvana -- but the "being" composed of the Five Aggregates (the empty process of the Five Aggregates clinging to themselves as a "being") who realized nirvana.

This point has to be emphasized over and again because people, even some great scholars, have misunderstood and misinterpreted this simile as referring to nirvana. Nirvana is never compared to a fire or to a lamp flame gone out.

Another popular question is, "If there is no self and no soul (atman) then who realizes nirvana?" Before going on to nirvana, let us ask the question, "Who thinks right now if there is no self?"

• (Cognito ergo sum, "I think therefore I am," rings in our heads as the answer to there being no self. In fact, on the basis of the evidence, all that can be said is, "Thinking is therefore there is thought." In other words, "Cognition cognizes because there is no 'cognizer' only the Five Aggregates clung to as Self").

Path: virtue, purifying concentration, wisdom.

In the ultimate analysis -- though it rungs completely against "common sense," we have already seen that it is thought that thinks; there is no "thinker" behind thought. In the same way and for the same reasons, it is wisdom (panna, prajna) that is wise, insight that is insightful, realization that realizes. There is NO self behind the realization, no actual experiencer behind experience.

In the discussion of the origin of dukkha (disappointment, suffering), we saw that whatever it may be — whether eternal being, temporary thing, or impersonal process — if it is of a nature of arising, it has within itself the nature of ceasing. It is like the Taoist yin yang symbol brought into Buddhism. Each cycling wave, black or white, has within it a dot of the other: What ceases is of a nature to arise, and what arises is of a nature to cease.

Now all that is unpleasant (dukkha) and the cycle of birth and death (samsara) is of a nature to arise, so it follows that it must be of a nature to cease. Dukkha [has multiples causes and supporting conditions] arises because of craving (tanha rooted in ignorance), and it ceases because of wisdom (panna).

Craving and wisdom are both within the Five Aggregates affected by clinging, as we saw earlier.

Therefore, the seed of their arising as well as that of their cessation are both within the Five Aggregates. This is the real meaning of the Buddha's well known statement, "Within this fathom-long sentient body, I proclaim:

1. the world,
2. the arising of the world,
3. the cessation of the world, and
4. the path leading to the cessation of the world."

All that arises is of a nature to pass away!

This means that all Four Noble Truths are found within the Five Aggregates, that is, within ourselves or what we cling to assuming to be ourselves. Here the word "world" (loka) is used in place of dukkha). This is how all suffering arises, and so here is found the seed of the cessation of all suffering.

This also means that there is no external power that produces the arising and the cessation of dukkha. When wisdom is developed and cultivated according to the fourth noble truth, it sees the secret of life, the reality of things as they really are.

When the secret is discovered, when it is directly penetrated, when the ultimate Truth is known-and-seen, all the forces that feverishly produce the illusion of samsara (continuity) become calm and incapable of producing any more karmic-formations, because there is no more illusion, no more craving for what is impermanent, disappointing, and impersonal.

It is like a mental disease that is cured when the cause or the secret of the malady is discovered and seen by the patient. In almost all religions the ultimate (the summum bonum), like a heavenly rebirth or divine rewards, can only be attained after death.

But nirvana can and is to be realized in this very life. It is not a matter of waiting to die to see if it's true, to "gain" or "attain" it. One who has realized the Truth, nirvana, is the happiest being in the world. For one is free from all "complexes" (i.e., inferiority, superiority, etc.) and obsessions, the common worries and troubles that torment others.

One's mental health becomes perfect with arahantship, full enlightenment. One does not repent the past, nor does one brood over the future. One lives fully in the present. [1] Therefore, one appreciates and enjoys things in the purest sense without self-projections. One is joyful, exultant, enjoying the a purified life (cleansed of the roots of greed, hatred, and delusion), one's faculties are pleased, free from anxiety, serene and peaceful.

As one is free from selfish craving, selfish aversion, self-consumed ignorance, conceit, pride, egotism, wrong views and all such "defilements," one is pure and gentle, full of metta (universal friendliness, loving-kindness), compassion, sympathetic joy (happy for others' happiness), equanimity, understanding, and tolerance.

One's service to others is of the purest sort, for one has no thought of "self" or selfishness. One gains nothing, accumulates nothing, hoards nothing, not even anything spiritual, because one is free from the illusion of self and the craving for becoming.

Nirvana is beyond all terms of duality and relativity. It is, therefore, beyond our conceptions of good and bad, right and wrong, existence and non-existence, yin or yang. Even the word "happiness" (sukha, the opposite of dukkha), which is used to describe nirvana, has an entirely different sense here.

Ven. Sariputra once said, "O friend, nirvana is happiness, nirvana is happiness!" Then Udayi asked, "But, friend Sariputra, what happiness can it be if there is no sensation?" Ven. Sariputra's reply was highly philosophical and beyond ordinary comprehension: "That there is no sensation itself is happiness."

Nirvana is beyond logic and mere reasoning (atakkavacara). However much we may engage, often as a vain intellectual pursuit, in highly speculative discussions regarding nirvana or ultimate truth or "reality," we will never understand it by those means.

Nirvana is known when it is experienced.

By comparison a child in kindergarten should not quarrel about or debate the theory of relativity. Instead, if one follows one's studies (putting them into practice) patiently and diligently, one day that person, formerly a child, may understand it.

Nirvana is "to be realized by the wise within themselves" (paccattam veditabbo vinnuhi). If we follow the path to nirvana -- the path to freedom, the path of purification, the path of practice -- patiently and with diligence, train and purify ourselves earnestly, and attain the necessary spiritual development, we may one day realize it within ourselves — without taxing ourselves with puzzling and high-sounding words.

Let us, therefore, now turn to the path that leads to the direct realization of nirvana [the experience of this verb, this cooling, slaking, quenching of the painful fires of greed, hatred, and delusion]. More