Nirvana (Buddhism)
Nirvana (Sanskrit: निर्वाण; IAST: nirvāṇa; Pali: nibbāna) is the extinguishing of the passions,[1] the "blowing out" or "quenching" of the activity of the grasping mind and its related unease.
[24][quote 4] In the Buddhist tradition, nirvana, "to blow out",[25] has commonly been interpreted as the extinction of the "three fires",[5] or "three poisons",[6][7] namely of passion or sensuality (raga), aversion or hate (dvesha) and of delusion or ignorance (moha or avidyā).
[38] In the early texts, the practice of the noble path and the four dhyanas was said to lead to the extinction of the three fires, and then proceed to the cessation of all discursive thoughts and apperceptions, then ceasing all feelings (happiness and sadness).
According to this tradition of scholarship, the view of primitive Buddhism was that nirvana was a positive reality, a kind of immortal state (amrta) similar to the godly abode of svarga found in the Edicts of Ashoka.
[58] Peter Harvey has defended the idea that nirvana in the Pali suttas refers to a kind of transformed and transcendent consciousness (viññana) that has "stopped" (nirodhena).
According to Harvey this nirvanic consciousness is said to be "objectless", "infinite" (anantam), "unsupported" (appatiṭṭhita) and "non-manifestive" (anidassana) as well as "beyond time and spatial location".
"[62] Bodhi notes that nibbana is sometimes described as a base (ayatana), an unborn and unconditioned state (pada), a reality (dhamma), and an "element" (dhatu).
"[64] Stanislaw Schayer, a Polish scholar, argued in the 1930s that the Nikayas preserve elements of an archaic form of Buddhism which is close to Brahmanical beliefs,[66][67][68][69] which also survived in the Mahayana tradition.
Steven Collins lists some examples of synonyms used throughout the Pali texts for Nirvana:the end, (the place, state) without corruptions, the truth, the further (shore), the subtle, very hard to see, without decay, firm, not liable to dissolution, incomparable, without differentiation, peaceful, deathless, excellent, auspicious, rest, the destruction of craving, marvellous, without affliction, whose nature is to be free from affliction, nibbana [presumably here in one or more creative etymology,= e.g., non-forest], without trouble, dispassion, purity, freedom, without attachment, the island, shelter (cave), protection, refuge, final end, the subduing of pride (or ‘intoxication’), elimination of thirst, destruction of attachment, cutting off of the round (of rebirth), empty, very hard to obtain, where there is no becoming, without misfortune, where there is nothing made, sorrowfree, without danger, whose nature is to be without danger, profound, hard to see, superior, unexcelled (without superior), unequalled, incomparable, foremost, best, without strife, clean, flawless, stainless, happiness, immeasurable, (a firm) standing point, possessing nothing.
[106]In the Theravada tradition's Abhidhamma texts, nibbāna is regarded as an uncompounded or unconditioned (asankhata) dhamma (phenomenon, event) which is "transmundane",[107][note 11] and which is beyond our normal dualistic conceptions.
[113] According to Buddhaghosa, nibbāna is achieved after a long process of committed application to the path of purification, a gradual training extending often over a number of years.
Jayatilleke, a modern Sri Lankan Buddhist philosopher, holds that nirvana must be understood by a careful study of the Pali texts.
[128] Jayatilleke writes that despite the definition of nirvana as 'extinction', this does not mean that it is a kind of annihilation or a state of dormant nonentity, for this contradicts the statements of the Buddha that reject this interpretation.
[web 17][146] Some teachers of the Thai forest tradition, such as Ajahn Maha Bua taught an idea called "original mind" which when perfected is said to exist as a separate reality from the world and the aggregates.
[147] According to Maha Bua, the indestructible mind or citta is characterized by awareness or knowing, which is intrinsically bright (pabhassaram) and radiant, and though it is tangled or "darkened" in samsara, it is not destroyed.
[147][148] Maha Bua also publicly argued (in a newspaper in 1972) that one could meet with and discuss the teachings with arahants and Buddhas of the past (and that Ajahn Mun had done so) therefore positing that nibbana is a kind of higher existence.
[150] Ajahns Pasanno and Amaro, contemporary western monastics in the Thai forest tradition, note that these ideas are rooted in a passage in the Anguttara Nikaya (1.61-62) which mentions a certain "pabhassara citta".
[151] Citing another passage from the canon which mentions a "consciousness that is signless, boundless, all-luminous" (called anidassana viññāṇa) they state that this "must mean a knowing of a primordial, transcendent nature.
"[155] This view has been strongly criticized as "insulting the Buddha’s teaching" and "showing disrespect to the Pali canon" by Prayudh Payutto (In his The Dhammakaya case) and this has led to fervent debates in Thai Buddhist circles.
"[164] Soonil explains the Sarvastivada view of nirvana as "the perpetual separation of an impure dharma from a series of aggregates through the antidote, ‘acquisition of disjunction’ (visamyogaprapti).
By reason of this separation, then, there arises ‘the acquisition of disjunction’ (visamyogaprapti) that serves as an antidote (pratipaksa), which henceforward prevents the junction between the defilement and this series.
[112] One of the few surviving Pudgalavada texts defines nirvana as:Absolute truth is the definitive cessation of all activities of speech (vac) and of all thoughts (citta).
[171] Regarding the nirvana reached by the Buddha, they held that his longevity (ayu), his body (rupa, sarira) and divine power (tejas) were infinite, unlimited and supramundane (lokuttara).
[178] The Mahāyāna (Great Vehicle) tradition, which promotes the bodhisattva path as the highest spiritual ideal over the goal of arhatship, envisions different views of nirvāṇa than the Nikaya Buddhist schools.
Etienne Lamotte, in his analysis of the Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa, notes that this text also supports the idea that after entering complete nirvāṇa (parinirvāṇa), a bodhisattva is "able to do nothing more for gods or for men" and therefore he seeks to obtain "wisdom similar to but slightly inferior to that of the Buddhas, which allows him to remain for a long time in saṃsāra in order to dedicate himself to salvific activity by many and varied skillful means.
According to the classic Indian theory, this lesser, abiding nirvana is achieved by followers of the "inferior" vehicle (hinayana) schools which are said to only work towards their own personal liberation.
According to Sponberg this doctrine developed among Yogacara Buddhists who rejected earlier views which were based on an individual liberation aimed at a transcendent state, separated from the mundane sphere of human existence.
[191] Sponberg also notes that the Madhyamika school also had a hand in developing this idea, due to their rejection of dualistic concepts which separated samsara and nirvana and their promotion of a form of liberation which was totally without duality.
It has as its characteristic (laksana) the revolution (paravrtti) of the dual base (asraya) in which one relinquishes all defilements (klesa), but does not abandon the world of death and rebirth (samsara).
The end stage practice of the Mahāyāna removes the imprints of delusions, the obstructions to omniscience (sarvākārajñatā), which prevent simultaneous and direct knowledge of all phenomena.
