Nirvana (Buddhism)

Translations of Nirvana
English:	blowing out, extinguishing, liberation
Pali:	nibbāna (निब्बान)
Sanskrit:	nirvāṇa (निर्वाण)
Bengali:	নির্বাণ
Burmese:	နိဗ္ဗာန် (IPA: )
Chinese:	涅槃 (pinyin: nièpán)
Japanese:	涅槃 (rōmaji: nehan)
Khmer:	និព្វាន
Korean:	열반 (RR: yeolban)
Mon:	နဳဗာန် ([nìppàn])
Mongolian:	γasalang-aca nögcigsen
Shan:	ၼိၵ်ႈပၢၼ်ႇ ([nik3paan2])
Sinhala:	නිවන (Nivana)
Tibetan:	མྱ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པ། (mya ngan las 'das pa)
Thai:	นิพพาน (nibbana)
Vietnamese:	Niết bàn
Glossary of Buddhism

Nirvana (Sanskrit, also nirvāṇa; Pali: nibbana, nibbāna ) is the earliest and most common term used to describe the goal of the Buddhist path.^[1] The literal meaning of the term in Sanskrit is "to be blown out" or "to be extinguished". Within the Buddhist tradition, this term is typically glossed as the extinction of craving (tanha), or more broadly, the extinction of the fires of attachment (raga), aversion (dvesha) and ignorance (moha or avidyā).^[1] In the Buddhist view, when these fires are extinguished, suffering (dukkha) comes to an end, and one is released from the cycle of rebirth (saṃsāra).

Buddhist tradition distinguishes between the experience of someone who reaches nirvana during their lifetime (sopadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa) and the experience of nirvana after death (nir-upadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa). The experience of nirvana-in-this-lifetime is described as a transformed state of mind that is free from negative mental states, peaceful, happy, and non-reactive. The experience of nirvana-after-death (commonly referred to as paranirvana) is said to be beyond words or description.

The two main traditions of Buddhism, the Theravada and Mahayana, differ in their presentations of nirvana. The Theravada tradition emphasizes the cessation of suffering and liberation from samsara. The Mahayana tradition emphasizes two stages of nirvana: the first stage is described (using similar language to the Theravada tradition) as the cessation of suffering and liberation from samsara; the next and final stage is referred to as the nonabiding (apratiṣṭhita) nirvana, or buddhahood, that transcends both samsara and the limited nirvana of the first stage.

Goal of the Buddhist Path

In Buddhism, Nirvana is the ultimate goal of the spiritual path.^[1] Joseph Goldstein explains:^[2]

It is Nibbana that the Buddha declared to be the final goal of the spiritual journey: “This holy life … does not have gain, honor, and renown for its benefit, or the attainment of virtue for its benefit, or the attainment of concentration for its benefit, or knowledge and vision for its benefit. But it is this unshakable deliverance of mind that is the goal of this holy life, its heartwood and its end.”^[2]

Contemporary translator Bhikkhu Bodhi states:^{[web 2]}

The Buddha says "Just as the water of a river plunges into the ocean and merges with the ocean, so the spiritual path, the Noble Eightfold Path, plunges into Nibbana and merges with Nibbana."

Overview

Extinguishing the fires

In the Buddhist tradition, nirvana is described as the extinguishing of the fires that cause suffering. These fires are typically identified as the fires of attachment (raga), aversion (dvesha) and ignorance (moha or avidya).^[3]

For example, Rupert Gethin states:^[9]

Literally nirvāṇa means ‘blowing out’ or ‘extinguishing’ [...] What the Pali and Sanskrit expression primarily indicates is the event or process of the extinction of the ‘fires’ of greed, aversion, and delusion. At the moment the Buddha understood suffering, its arising, its cessation, and the path leading to its cessation, these fires were extinguished. This process is the same for all who reach awakening, and the early texts term it either nirvāṇa or parinirvāṇa, the complete ‘blowing out’ or ‘extinguishing’ of the ‘fires’ of greed, aversion, and delusion. This is not a ‘thing’ but an event or experience.

Contemporary Buddhist scholar Ajahn Sucitto emphasizes that when these fires are extinguished, the mind is freed. Ajahn Sucitto states:^[11]

The metaphors associated with nibbāna often liken it to the blowing out of a fire. When it is no longer burning, the fire has “nibbāna’d”—the elements on which it was based are no longer in a state of combustion. This may seem like sterility and lifelessness from the viewpoint of the fire, but from the perspective of the elements it means life and potential. That is, when the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion are extinguished, the mind is free to operate in terms of its fullest capacity.

Freedom from suffering

In the Buddhist view, when the fires of attachment (raga), aversion (dvesha) and ignorance (moha or avidya) are extinguished, suffering (dukkha) comes to an end. The cessation of suffering is described as complete peace. Bhikkhu Bodhi states:^[12]

The state of perfect peace that comes when craving is eliminated is Nibbāna (nirvāṇa), the unconditioned state experienced while alive with the extinguishing of the flames of greed, aversion, and delusion.

Freedom from rebirth

In the Buddhist view, the fires of attachment (raga), aversion (dvesha) and ignorance (moha or avidya) are the forces which propel the cycle of rebirth (samsara). When these fires are extinguished, freedom from rebirth is attained.^[4]

Bhikkhu Bodhi states:^[13]

For as long as one is entangled by craving, one remains bound in saṃsāra, the cycle of birth and death; but when all craving has been extirpated, one attains Nibbāna, deliverance from the cycle of birth and death.

Paul Williams states:^[10]

Nirvana is broadly speaking the result of letting-go, letting-go the very forces of craving which power continued experiences of pleasure and inevitably suffering throughout this life, death, rebirth, and redeath. That, in a nutshell, is what nirvana is. It is the complete and permanent cessation of samsara, thence the cessation of all types of suffering, resulting from letting-go the forces which power samsara, due to overcoming ignorance (thence also hatred and delusion, the 'three root poisons') through seeing things the way they really are.

During life and after death

In the Buddhist tradition, a distinction is made between a person's experience of nirvana during their life and after their death. These two aspects of nirvana are described as:^[5]

• Nirvana during life
  • Pali: sa-upādisesa-nibbāna
  • Sanskrit: sopadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa
  • Also translated as: nirvana with remainder; nirvana with residue
  • Indicates the experience of someone who has experienced nirvana in their lifetime but still remains in their physical body
• Nirvana after death
  • Pali: an-up ādisesa-nibbāna
  • Sanskrit: nir-upadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa
  • Also referred to as: nirvana without remainder; nirvana without residue; or parinirvana
  • Indicates the experience of nirvana for someone after their death

Nirvana in this life

In the Buddhist tradition, it is believed that a practitioner can achieve nirvana during their life, or at the moment of death. When a practitioner experiences nirvana during their life, this experience is referred as nirvana-in-this-life, or more traditionally, "nirvana with remainder" (Pali: sa-upādisesa-nibbāna; Sanskrit: sopadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa).

Contemporary scholar Rupert Gethin explains:^[18]

Like the Buddha, any person who attains nirvāṇa does not remain thereafter forever absorbed in some transcendental state of mind. On the contrary he or she continues to live in the world; he or she continues to think, speak, and act as other people do—with the difference that all his or her thoughts, words, and deeds are completely free of the motivations of greed, aversion, and delusion, and motivated instead entirely by generosity, friendliness, and wisdom. This condition of having extinguished the defilements can be termed ‘nirvāṇa with the remainder [of life]’ (sopadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa/sa-upādisesa-nibbāna): the nirvāṇa that comes from ending the occurrence of the defilements (kleśa/kilesa) of the mind; what the Pali commentaries call for short kilesa-parinibbāna.^[6] And this is what the Buddha achieved on the night of his awakening.

The experience of nirvana-in-this-life is said to result in a transformed mind that has the following qualities:

• free from negative mental states
• peaceful
• non-reactive

Free from negative mental states

The experience of nirvana-in-this-life is said to be free from all negative mental states. For example, Walpola Rahula states that one who has achieved nirvana is "free from all ‘complexes’ and obsessions, the worries and troubles that torment others."^[19]

Damien Keown states:^[20]

Nirvana [...] involves a radically transformed state of consciousness which is free of the obsession with ‘me and mine’.

Rupert Gethin states:^[18]

Any person who attains nirvāṇa [...] continues to think, speak, and act as other people do—with the difference that all his or her thoughts, words, and deeds are completely free of the motivations of greed, aversion, and delusion, and motivated instead entirely by generosity, friendliness, and wisdom.

Contemporary Buddhist teacher Ajahn Sucitto states:^[11]

When the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion are extinguished, the mind is free to operate in terms of its fullest capacity.

Anam Thubten states:^[21]

Nirvana or whatever you want to call it means the complete deconstruction of all of our rigid mental patterns and habits as well the deconstruction of all of our limiting beliefs. This deconstruction creates a space for true inquiry. When we open our hearts and our minds completely, we are in a place where we can experience something new, a new truth, a new reality, a miracle that we haven't experienced in the past. We can see things differently and they present new, expanded opportunities, new horizons.

Peaceful

Nirvana is described as a state of perfect peace that comes when all negative mental states are eliminated.^[7] For example, Walpola Rahula states:^[19]

He who has realized the Truth, Nirvāṇa, is the happiest being in the world. He is free from all ‘complexes’ and obsessions, the worries and troubles that torment others. His mental health is perfect. He does not repent the past, nor does he brood over the future. He lives fully in the present.^[8] Therefore he appreciates and enjoys things in the purest sense without self-projections. He is joyful, exultant, enjoying the pure life, his faculties pleased, free from anxiety, serene and peaceful.^[9]

Damien Keown states:^[20]

It is clear that nirvana-in-this-life is a psychological and ethical reality, a transformed state of personality characterized by peace, deep spiritual joy, compassion, and a refined and subtle awareness. Negative mental states and emotions such as doubt, worry, anxiety, and fear are absent from the enlightened mind. Saints in many religious traditions exhibit some or all of these qualities, and ordinary people also possess them to some degree, although imperfectly developed. An enlightened person, however, such as a Buddha or an Arhat, possesses them all completely.

Non-reactive

In the state of nirvana, the mind is no longer reactive. Phillip Moffitt states:^[25]

Nibbana literally means "cooled" and is analogous to a fire that's no longer burning. Thus, when there is cessation, your mind no longer burns in response to the arising of pleasant and unpleasant in your life; it isn't reactive or controlled by what you like or dislike.

Ringu Tulku explains:^[23]

Someone who has attained [...] the state of nirvana, will no longer react within the pattern of aversion and attachment. The way such a person sees things will be nondualistic and therefore non-conceptual. [...] When this dual reaction is gone, nothing is haunting or fearful anymore. We see clearly, and nothing seems imposing, since nothing is imposed from our part. When there is nothing we do not like, there is nothing to fear. Being free from fear, we are peaceful. There is no need to run away from anything, and therefore no need to run after anything either. In this way there is no burden. We can have inner peace, strength, and clarity, almost independent from circumstances and situations. This is complete freedom of mind without any circumstantial entanglement; the state is called "nirvana" [...]. Someone who has reached this state has gone beyond our usual way of being imprisoned in habitual patterns and distorted ways of seeing these things.

Ajahn Sucitto states "qualities like calm, clarity, and kindness are all enhanced [...] the tinder and the sparkiness of the heart are removed."^[11]

Nirvana after death

In the Buddhist view, when an ordinary person dies and their physical body disintegrates, the person's consciousness passes onto a new birth; and the person is reborn in one of the six realms of samsara. However, when a person attains nirvana, they are liberated from ordinary rebirth. When such a person dies, their physical body disintegrates and their consciousness is said to be completely liberated. They are not reborn in the ordinary sense. Their consciousness does not take rebirth into a physical form.

Contemporary scholar Rupert Gethin explains:^[26]

Eventually ‘the remainder of life’ will be exhausted and, like all beings, such a person must die. But unlike other beings, who have not experienced ‘nirvāṇa’, he or she will not be reborn into some new life, the physical and mental constituents of being will not come together in some new existence, there will be no new being or person. Instead of being reborn, the person ‘parinirvāṇa-s’, meaning in this context that the five aggregates of physical and mental phenomena that constitute a being cease to occur. This is the condition of ‘nirvāṇa without remainder [of life]’ (nir-upadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa/an-up ādisesa-nibbāna): nirvāṇa that comes from ending the occurrence of the aggregates (skandha/khandha) of physical and mental phenomena that constitute a being; or, for short, khandha-parinibbāna.^[6] Modern Buddhist usage tends to restrict ‘nirvāṇa’ to the awakening experience and reserve ‘parinirvāṇa’ for the death experience.

The experience of nirvana-after-death (paranirvana) is said to be beyond words or description. Walpola Rahula explains:^[27]

Nirvāṇa is beyond all terms of duality and relativity. It is therefore beyond our conceptions of good and evil, right and wrong, existence and non-existence. Even the word ‘happiness’ (sukha) which is used to describe Nirvāṇa has an entirely different sense here. Sāriputta once said: ‘O friend, Nirvāṇa is happiness! Nirvāṇa is happiness!’ Then Udāyi asked: ‘But, friend Sāriputta, what happiness can it be if there is no sensation?’ Sāriputta’s reply was highly philosophical and beyond ordinary comprehension: “That there is no sensation itself is happiness’.

No words to describe the experience

In the Buddhist view, there are no words to describe the experience of nirvana-after-death. Walpola Rahula explains:^[28]

Now another question arises: What happens to the Buddha or an Arahant after his death, parinirvāṇa? This comes under the category of unanswered questions (avyākata). [Samyutta Nikaya IV (PTS), p. 375 f.] Even when the Buddha spoke about this, he indicated that no words in our vocabulary could express what happens to an Arahant after his death. In reply to a Parivrājaka named Vaccha, the Buddha said that terms like ‘born’ or ‘not born’ do not apply in the case of an Arahant, because those things—matter, sensation, perception, mental activities, consciousness—with which the terms like ‘born’ and ‘not born’ are associated, are completely destroyed and uprooted, never to rise again after his death. [Majjhima Nikaya I (PTS), p. 486]

Physical existence is like a fire gone out

When a person who has reached nirvana dies, their physical existence is compared to a fire that has gone out. Walpola Rahula explains:^[28]

An Arahant after his death is often compared to a fire gone out when the supply of wood is over, or to the flame of a lamp gone out when the wick and oil are finished.[Majjhima Nikaya I (PTS), p. 487] Here it should be clearly and distinctly understood, without any confusion, that what is compared to a flame or a fire gone out is not Nirvāṇa, but the ‘being’ composed of the Five Aggregates who realized Nirvāṇa. This point has to be emphasized because many people, even some great scholars, have misunderstood and misinterpreted this simile as referring to Nirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa is never compared to a fire or a lamp gone out.

Theravada

Gradual process

According to the Visuddhimagga, nirvana is achieved after a long process of committed application to the path of purification (Pali: Vissudhimagga). The Buddha explained that the disciplined way of life he recommended to his students (dhamma-vinaya) is a gradual training extending often over a number of years. To be committed to this path already requires that a seed of wisdom is present in the individual. This wisdom becomes manifest in the experience of awakening (bodhi). Attaining nibbāna, in either the current or some future birth, depends on effort, and is not pre-determined.^[29]

Options for pursuing the path

In the Visuddhimagga, Ch. I, v. 6 (Buddhaghosa and Ñāṇamoli, 1999, pp. 6–7.), Buddhaghosa identifies various options within the Pali canon for pursuing a path to nirvana,^[10] including:

1. By insight (vipassana) alone ^[11]
2. By jhana and understanding (see Dh. 372)^[31]
3. by deeds, vision and righteousness (see MN iii.262)^[12]
4. By virtue, consciousness and understanding (7SN i.13);^[13]
5. by virtue, understanding, concentration and effort;^[14]
6. By the four foundations of mindfulness.^[34][15]

Depending on one's analysis, each of these options could be seen as a reframing of the Buddha's Threefold Training of virtue, mental development^[16] and wisdom.

Levels of attainment

The Theravada tradition identifies four progressive stages culminating in full enlightenment as an Arahat. These four stages are:

• Stream-enterer (Sotapanna)
• Once returner (Sakadagami)
• Non-returner (Anagami)
• Arhat

The final stage, the arhat, is a fully awakened person. The arhat has abandoned all ten fetters and, upon death will never be reborn in any plane or world, having wholly escaped saṃsāra.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu notes that individuals up to the level of non-returning may experience nirvāna as an object of mental consciousness.^[35][17] Certain contemplations with nibbana as an object of samādhi lead, if developed, to the level of non-returning.^[36] At that point of contemplation, which is reached through a progression of insight, if the meditator realizes that even that state is constructed and therefore impermanent, the fetters are destroyed, arahantship is attained, and nibbāna is realized.^[37]

Mind/consciousness in the liberated person

The Buddha's teachings in the Pāli Canon present nirvāṇa as a radical reordering of consciousness.^[38] This reordering is made possible through the threefold training (Noble Eightfold Path). It is concerned with performing wholesome actions (Pali: kusala kamma) with positive results and finally allows the cessation of the origination of worldly activities altogether with the attainment of nibbāna. Part of it is cultivation of special states of absorbed concentration called jhānas. These are states of deep relaxation in which a high degree of mental alertness and concentration is present. The jhanas in turn are made possible by a training in the establishing of mindfulness.

Luminous

With nirvāṇa the consciousness is released, and the mind becomes aware in a way that is totally unconstrained by anything in the conditioned world. The Buddha describes this in a variety of passages. One way is as "Consciousness without feature, without end, luminous all around."^[39][40]

In one interpretation, the "luminous consciousness" is identical with nirvāṇa.^[41][42] Others disagree, finding it to be not nirvāṇa itself, but instead to be a kind of consciousness accessible only to arahants.^[43][44] A passage in the Majjhima Nikaya likens it to empty space.^[45]

Ajahns Pasanno and Amaro, contemporary vipassana-teachers write that what is referred to with the use of the word "viññana" (consciousness) is the quality of awareness, and that the use of the term "viññana" must be in a broader way than it usually is meant.^[46][18]

This "non-manifestive consciousness" differs from the kinds of consciousness associated to the six sense media, which have a "surface" that they fall upon and arise in response to.^[39] According to Peter Harvey, the early texts are ambivalent as to whether or not the term "consciousness" is accurate.^[47] In a liberated individual, this is directly experienced, in a way that is free from any dependence on conditions at all.^[39][48]

Unmediated knowledge

For liberated ones the luminous, unsupported consciousness associated with nibbana is directly known without mediation of the mental consciousness factor in dependent co-arising, and is the transcending of all objects of mental consciousness.^[35][37] It differs radically from the concept in the pre-Buddhist Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita of Self-realization, described as accessing the individual's inmost consciousness, in that it is not considered an aspect, even the deepest aspect, of the individual's personality, and is not to be confused in any way with a "Self".^[49] Furthermore, it transcends the sphere of infinite consciousness, the sixth of the Buddhist jhanas, which is in itself not the ending of the conceit of "I".^[50]

Nagarjuna alluded to a passage regarding this level of consciousness in the Dighanikaya^[51] in two different works. He wrote that

The Sage has declared that earth, water, fire, and wind, long, short, fine and coarse, good, and so on are extinguished in consciousness ... Here long and short, fine and coarse, good and bad, here name and form all stop.^[52]

A related idea, which finds support in the Pali Canon and the contemporary Theravada practice tradition despite its absence in the Theravada commentaries and Abhidhamma, is that the mind of the arahant is itself nibbana.^[53][19]

Unconditioned

The Buddha explains the unique character of nibbāna as being due to the mind having become unconditioned (asankhata) which is to say free from the conditions formerly obscuring it by the volitional formations.

Free from rebirth

The sankharas are the ultimate cause for the material incarnation of sentient beings. According to the Buddha, during the course of many repeated incarnations these deeply buried structures (also referred to in Yogacara as karmic 'seeds'; Sanskrit: bīja) are either strengthened by indulgence in worldly activities (a person doing so is described as a Puthujjana) or weakened by following the Buddhist path. By uprooting the sanskara (volitional dispositions) one is no longer subject to further rebirth in samsāra.

The ultimate state of nirvana is described by the Buddha as "deathlessness" (Pali: amata or amāravati).

Actions of the liberated person

A liberated person performs neutral actions (Pali: kiriya kamma) producing no karmic results or fruit (vipaka), but nonetheless preserves a particular individual personality. This is the result of the traces of his or her karmic heritage. ^[58] In Theravada the arahant abiding in nirvāṇa is "the ideal personality, the true human being".^[59]

Mahayana

Two levels

The Mahayana (Great Vehicle) tradition emphasizes two levels of nirvana:

• The nirvana of the Hinayana (Lesser Vehicle)
  • Indicates freedom from samsara and the cessation of suffering
  • Referred to as arhathood in the Mahayana tradition
• Nonabiding (apratiṣṭhita) nirvana
  • Indicates a state that transcends both samsara and the nirvana of the Hinayana
  • Referred to as buddhahood in the Mahayana tradition
  • The ultimate goal of the path

Note that some texts present the Mahayana path in three stages, where the first stage indicates a level of understanding or ethical conduct for non-Buddhists, and the second two stages are as indicated above.^[20]

Nirvana of the Hinayana

In the Mahayana tradition, the path of the Mahayana, or Great Vehicle, is distinguished from the path of the Hinayana, or Lesser Vehicle. The Hinayana path is typically described as consisting of two subdivisions: the path of the sravaka (listener, hearer, or disciple) and the path of the pratyeka-buddha (solitary realizer). While the Hinayana path is sometimes equated with the modern day Theravada tradition, the terms are not synonymous. As Walpola Rahula notes, the modern-day Theravada formed separately from the Hinayana traditions referred to in the Mahayana texts.^[21]

From the Mahayana point of view, the nirvana of the Lesser Vehicle is a form of liberation or awakening, but it is not the final goal of the path. Contemporary scholar Rupert Gethin explains:^[61]

The Mahāyāna sūtras express two basic attitudes towards [the nirvana of the Lesser Vehicle]. The first [attitude] is that the path of the disciple [sravaka] and the path of the pratyeka-buddha do lead to a kind of awakening, a release from suffering, nirvāna, and as such are real goals. These goals are, however, inferior and should be renounced for the superior attainment of buddhahood. The second attitude, classically articulated by the Lotus Sūtra, sees the goal of the disciple and the pratyeka-buddha as not true goals at all.^[22] The fact that the Buddha taught them is an example of his ‘skill in means’ (upaya-kauśalya) as a teacher.^[23] These goals are thus merely clever devices (upāya) employed by the Buddha in order to get beings to at least begin the practice of the path; eventually their practice must lead on to the one and only vehicle (eka-yāna) that is the mahāyāna, the vehicle ending in perfect buddhahood.

Nonabiding nirvana

From the point of view of the Mahayana tradition, only by following the Mahayana path can one attain the highest level of realization, which is the nonabiding (apratiṣṭhita) nirvana, or buddhahood, that transcends both samsara and the limited nirvana of the Lesser Vehicle.^[24]

Contemporary translator Douglas Duckworth presents the Mahayana point of view:^[68]

The Lesser Vehicle does not result in the practitioner becoming a complete buddha; rather, the aim is to achieve a personal nirvana that is the total extinction of existence. The Great Vehicle, however, does result in becoming a complete buddha. A buddha remains actively engaged in enlightened activity to liberate beings for as long as samsara remains. Thus, those who accomplish the Great Vehicle do not abide in samsara due to their wisdom that sees its empty, illusory nature. Further, unlike those who attain the nirvana of the Lesser Vehicle to escape samsara, they do not abide in an isolated nirvana due to their compassion. For these reasons, in the Great Vehicle, nirvana is said to be “unlocated” or “nonabiding” (apratiṣṭhita), staying in neither samsara nor nirvana.

Five paths and ten bhumis

The Mahayana commentary the Abhisamayalamkara presents the path of the bodhisattva as a progressive formula of Five Paths (pañcamārga). A practitioner on the Five Paths advances through a progression of ten stages, referred to as the bodhisattva bhūmis (grounds or levels).

Mind/consciousness of the liberated person

Omniscience

From the Mahayana point of view, an arhat who has achieved the nirvana of the Lesser Vehicle will still have certain subtle obscurations that prevent the arhat from realizing complete omniscience. When these final obscurations are removed, the practitioner will attain nonabiding nirvana and achieve full omniscience ^[25]

The end stage practice of the Mahayana removes the imprints of delusions, the obstructions to omniscience, which prevent simultaneous and direct knowledge of all phenomena. Only Buddhas have overcome these obstructions, according to Mahayana Buddhism, and, therefore, only Buddhas have omniscience knowledge.

Purified mind

In some Mahayana/Tantric texts, nirvana is described as purified, non-dualistic 'superior mind'. For example, the Samputa Tantra states:

Undefiled by lust and emotional impurities, unclouded by any dualistic perceptions, this superior mind is indeed the supreme nirvana.'^[70]

Four attributes of

The Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra, which has as one of its main topics precisely the realm or dhatu of nirvana, has the Buddha speak of four attributes which make up nirvana. Writing on this Mahayana understanding of nirvana, William Edward Soothill and Lewis Hodous state:

‘The Nirvana Sutra claims for nirvana the ancient ideas of permanence, bliss, personality, purity in the transcendental realm. Mahayana declares that Hinayana, by denying personality in the transcendental realm, denies the existence of the Buddha. In Mahayana, final nirvana is both mundane and transcendental, and is also used as a term for the Absolute.^[71]

Kosho Yamamoto, translator of the full-length Nirvana Sutra, expresses the view that the non-Self doctrine of the Buddha's earlier teaching phase is an expedient only and that in the Nirvana Sutra a hidden teaching on the True Self is disclosed by the Buddha:

He [the Buddha] says that the non-Self which he once taught is none but of expediency ... He says that he is now ready to speak about the undisclosed teachings. Men abide in upside-down thoughts. So he will now speak of the affirmative attributes of nirvana, which are none other than the Eternal, Bliss, the Self and the Pure.^[72]

Positive language

According to some scholars, the language used in the Tathāgatagarbha genre of sutras can be seen as an attempt to state orthodox Buddhist teachings of dependent origination using positive language instead. Yamamoto points out that this ‘affirmative’ characterization of nirvana pertains to a supposedly higher form of nirvana—that of ‘Great Nirvana’. Speaking of the 'Bodhisattva Highly Virtuous King' chapter of the Nirvana Sutra, Yamamoto quotes the scripture itself:

What is nirvana? ...this is as in the case in which one who has hunger has peace and bliss as he has taken a little food.^[73]

Yamamoto continues with the quotation, adding his own comment:

But such a nirvāna cannot be called “Great Nirvāna”". And it [i.e. the Buddha’s new revelation regarding nirvana] goes on to dwell on the “Great Self”, “Great Bliss”, and “Great Purity”, all of which, along with the Eternal, constitute the four attributes of Great Nirvana.^[74]

Visible manifestations

Some Mahayana traditions see the Buddha in almost docetic terms, viewing his visible manifestations as projections from within the state of nirvana. According to Etienne Lamotte, Buddhas are always and at all times in nirvana, and their corporeal displays of themselves and their Buddhic careers are ultimately illusory. Lamotte writes of the Buddhas:

They are born, reach enlightenment, set turning the Wheel of Dharma, and enter nirvana. However, all this is only illusion: the appearance of a Buddha is the absence of arising, duration and destruction; their nirvana is the fact that they are always and at all times in nirvana.’^[75]

Within the discourses

Within the Buddhist tradition, there are many discourses (Pali: suttas)—the written records of the teaching of the Buddha—in which the Buddha explains the meaning of nirvana (Pali: nibbana).

Extinction of attachment, aversion, and delusion (Samyutta Nikaya 31)

The Samyutta Nikaya 31,1 states:^[76]

“The extinction of greed, the extinction of hate, the extinction of delusion: this indeed is called Nirvana.”

Extinction of thirst (Saṃyutta-nikāya I)

The following quotes from the Pali suttas refer to nirvana (Pali: nibbana) as the extinction of thirst (taṇhā):^[77]

"Calming of all conditioned things, giving up of all defilements, extinction of “thirst”, detachment, cessation, Nibbāna." (Saṃyutta-nikāya I (PTS), p. 136)

"O bhikkhus, what is the Absolute (Asaṃkhata, Unconditioned)? It is, O bhikkhus, the extinction of desire (rāgakkhayo) the extinction of hatred (dosakkhayo), the extinction of illusion (mohakkhayo). This, O bhikkhus, is called the Absolute." (Saṃyutta-nikāya I (PTS), p. 359)

"O Rādha, the extinction of 'thirst' (Taṇhakkhayo) is Nibbāna." (Saṃyutta-nikāya I (PTS), p. 190)

Extinction of aging and dying (Sutta-nipata)

The Sutta-nipata states:

Where there is nothing; where naught is grasped, there is the Isle of No-Beyond. Nirvāṇa do I call it—the utter extinction of aging and dying.

The liberated mind (Majjhima Nikaya)

Majjhima Nikaya 2-Att. 4.68 states:

The liberated mind (citta) that no longer clings' means nibbāna.

The highest happiness (Dhammapada)

In the Dhammapada, the Buddha describes nirvāṇa as "the highest happiness",^[78] an enduring happiness qualitatively different from the limited, transitory happiness derived from impermanent things.

Nirvana-after-death

Outside of all conceivable experience (Yamaka Sutta)

In the Yamaka Sutta (SN 22.58), the monk Sariputta clarifies the experience of Nirvana-after-death. As the sutra begins, a monk named Yamaka has the mistaken impression that a person who attains nirvana "does not exist" after death. Sariputta explains that this is not the correct view; the correct view is that nirvana-after-death is outside of all conceivable experience. Through a series of questions, Sariputta leads the monk Yamaka to admit that he cannot pin down the experience of an arahant after death. Yamaka comes to realize that the only accurate statement that can be made about nirvana-after-death is "That which is stressful (dukkha; suffering) has ceased and gone to its end."^{[web 4]}

Neither passing away nor arising (Udana 8.1)

In the Nibbana Sutta (Udana 8.1), the Buddha states:^{[web 5]}

There is that dimension where there is neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor wind; neither dimension of the infinitude of space, nor dimension of the infinitude of consciousness, nor dimension of nothingness, nor dimension of neither perception nor non-perception; neither this world, nor the next world, nor sun, nor moon. And there, I say, there is neither coming, nor going, nor stasis; neither passing away nor arising: without stance, without foundation, without support [mental object]. This, just this, is the end of stress (dukkha; suffering).

Neither reborn nor not reborn (Aggivacchagotta Sutta)

In the Aggivacchagotta Sutta, the Buddha discusses the experience of a buddha after their death. (This state is described as nirvana-after-death or paranirvana.) In the sutta, the Buddha states that the experience of such a person can not cannot be described in any of the following ways: as being reborn after death, not being reborn, being and not being reborn, or neither being nor not being reborn.

The Buddha concludes by comparing the physical form and consciousness of the Tathagata to a fire that has gone out. The sutta states:^{[79][web 6]}

Any fire burning dependent on a sustenance of grass and timber, being unnourished — from having consumed that sustenance and not being offered any other — is classified simply as 'out' (unbound).

Even so [...] any physical form by which one describing the Tathagata [the Buddha] would describe him: That the Tathagata has abandoned, its root destroyed, made like a palmyra stump, deprived of the conditions of development, not destined for future arising. Freed from the classification of form [...] the Tathagata is deep, boundless, hard to fathom, like the sea. 'Reappears' doesn't apply. 'Does not reappear' doesn't apply. 'Both does & does not reappear' doesn't apply. 'Neither reappears nor does not reappear' doesn't apply.

Etymology

Smith and Novak state:^[6]

Etymologically [nirvana] means “to blow out” or “to extinguish,” not transitively, but as a fire ceases to draw. Deprived of fuel, the fire goes out, and this is nirvana.

Bhikkhu Bodhi states:^[80]

Etymologically, the word nibbāna — the Pali form of the better known Sanskrit nirvāṇa — is derived from a verb nibbāti meaning “to be blown out” or “to be extinguished.” It thus signifies the extinguishing of the worldly “fires” of greed, hatred, and delusion. But the Pali commentators prefer to treat it as the negation of, or “departure from” (nikkhantatta), the entanglement (vāna) of craving, the derivation which is offered here. For as long as one is entangled by craving, one remains bound in saṃsāra, the cycle of birth and death; but when all craving has been extirpated, one attains Nibbāna, deliverance from the cycle of birth and death.

Rupert Gethin states:^[9]

Literally nirvāṇa means ‘blowing out’ or ‘extinguishing’, although Buddhist commentarial writings, by a play on words, like to explain it as ‘the absence of craving’. But where English translations of Buddhist texts have ‘he attains nirvāṇa/parinirvāṇa’, the more characteristic Pali or Sanskrit idiom is a simple verb: ‘he or she nirvāṇa-s’ or more often ‘he or she parinirvānṇa-s’ (parinibbāyati). What the Pali and Sanskrit expression primarily indicates is the event or process of the extinction of the ‘fires’ of greed, aversion, and delusion. At the moment the Buddha understood suffering, its arising, its cessation, and the path leading to its cessation, these fires were extinguished. This process is the same for all who reach awakening, and the early texts term it either nirvāṇa or parinirvāṇa, the complete ‘blowing out’ or ‘extinguishing’ of the ‘fires’ of greed, aversion, and delusion. This is not a ‘thing’ but an event or experience.

Advaita Vedanta scholar T. K. Parthasarathy suggests an alternate interpretation of the Sanskrit roots:^[81]

The Abhidharma -mahavibhasa-sastra- a sarvastivAdin commentary, gives a complete picture of the meanings from its Sanskrit roots: vANa implying the route of rebirth and added with Nir meaning 'leaving off' conveys permanently avoiding all paths of transmigration. vANa meaning stench or stink and Nir meaning opposite to it in total implies 'without and free from all stench of karma-s'. vANa meaning forest and Nir meaning without totally implies 'a state which has got rid of, for ever, of the dense forest of the three fires of lust, malice and delusion'.

Relation to moksha

Moksha is a Sankrit term that is also used to indicate liberation. It is most commonly used in the Hindu tradition.

This term is also used in some Buddhist traditions to denote aspects of liberation. For example, the Soka Gakkai Dictionary of Buddhism provides the following definition for the term vimoksha (identified as a synonym for moksha):

"Vimoksha [解脱] (Skt; Jpn gedatsu ). Emancipation, release, or liberation. The Sanskrit words vimukti, mukti, and moksha also have the same meaning. Vimoksha means release from the bonds of earthly desires, delusion, suffering, and transmigration. While Buddhism sets forth various kinds and stages of emancipation, or enlightenment, the supreme emancipation is nirvana, a state of perfect quietude, freedom, and deliverance.^{[web 7]}

See also

Notes

References

Printed references

Web-references

Sources

Further reading

• Ajahn Brahm, "Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond: A Meditator's Handbook" (Wisdom Publications 2006) Part II.
• Katukurunde Nanananda, "Nibbana - The Mind Stilled (Vol. I-VII)" (Dharma Grantha Mudrana Bharaya, 2012).
• Kawamura, Bodhisattva Doctrine in Buddhism, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1981, pp. 11.
• Yogi Kanna, "Nirvana: Absolute Freedom" (Kamath Publishing; 2011) 198 pages.
• Steven Collins. Nirvana: Concept, Imagery, Narrative (Cambridge University Press; 2010) 204 pages.

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