Nirvana: Deathless, Signless (Ven. Analayo)

Venerable sir, what is final liberation(moksha)? It is knowing-and-seeing nirvana!

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The Signless and the Deathless: On the Realization of Nirvana

The Signless and the Deathless

(BPS) The Signless and the Deathless by renowned academic Western Theravada scholar-monk Bhikkhu Anālayo is a groundbreaking investigation into the ultimate goal of Early Buddhist practice.

Published by Wisdom Publications with a foreword by Bhante G (Bhavana Society Abbot Ven. Gunaratana), this text illuminates two critical yet underappreciated facets of awakening.

Venerable Bhikkhu Analayo

Namely, there is "signless" concentration (a-nimitta)—a profound state of mind achieved by releasing the conceptual marks used to construct our daily experiences—and the "deathless" element (amata)—the complete transcendence of mental suffering caused by mortality (non-immortality).

Leveraging an extraordinary mastery of Pali Buddhist canon, Chinese Buddhist canon, and Tibetan Buddhist canon source texts, the renowned German academic Venerable Anālayo masterfully bridges rigorous historical scholarship with practical meditative insight [vipassanā-ñāṇa].

Ultimately, this book provides advanced practitioners and Buddhist scholars alike with a precise, systematic map for stepping out of conventional mental conditioning and realizing the final end of suffering while still alive (in this very life). More

• Mindfulness of Breathing with Ven. Analayo: Meditation 1

What is ultimate liberation?

Ven. Nyanatiloka (Anton Gueth) edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Vajrayana, Mahayana, and Theravada scholarship

The Sanskrit spiritual term moksha ("liberation") is in Pali vimokkha (also vimutti): The three -- namely, emptiness- (suññatā-vimokkha), signless- (animitta-vimokkha), and aimless- [undirected] (appanihita-vimokkha) -- are for the first time described and enumerated in Pts.M. II, 351. As suññatāsamādhi, and so on; however, they are already given in the Sangiti Sutta (DN 33).

DN 33: Buddhist scholar L. S. Cousins has tentatively suggested [25] that this was the first discourse (Pali canon sutta) created as a literary text, at the Second Buddhist Council, his theory being that "sutta" was originally a pattern of teaching rather than a body of literature. This discourse is taught by the Buddha's Chief Disciple Sariputta ("Foremost in Wisdom") at the Buddha's request. It gives lists arranged numerically from ones to tens... More

• Ven. Analayo (Buddhist Publication Society); Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly