What is Nibbana?

[BlueLotus]

I can understand the bit that says that nibbana is the end of all that is conditioned. No more rebirth in the realm of kama, rupa or arupa cause they are all subjected to ceasing...

But it also says that nibbana is not non-existence. It is not nothingness. It is merely the supreme bliss, the supermundane bliss, the ultimate, the realization of your true core.... so who perceives this bliss?

[SarathW]

What do you want to know?
The Nibbana before death or after death.

[Aloka]

I can understand the bit that says that nibbana is the end of all that is conditioned. No more rebirth in the realm of kama, rupa or arupa cause they are all subjected to ceasing...

But it also says that nibbana is not non-existence. It is not nothingness. It is merely the supreme bliss, the supermundane bliss, the ultimate, the realization of your true core.... so who perceives this bliss?

Hi Blue Lotus,

I suggest you read "The Island - An anthology of the Buddha's teachings on Nibanna" by Ajahn Pasanno and Ajahn Amaro.

https://www.amaravati.org/dhamma-books/the-island/

The introduction to the book is by Ajahn Sumedho.

Excerpt from the introduction;

A difficulty wirh the word ‘nibbāna’ is that its meaning is beyond the power of words to describe. It is, essentially, undefinable.

Another difficulty is that many Buddhists see Nibbāna as something unobtainable – as so high and so remote that we’re not worthy enough to try for it. Or we see Nibbāna as a goal, as an unknown, undefined something that we should somehow try to attain.

Most of us are conditioned in this way. We want to achieve or attain something that we don’t have now. So Nibbāna is looked at as something that, if you work hard, keep the sīla, meditate diligently, become a monastic, devote your life to practice, then your reward might be that eventually you attain Nibbāna – even though we’re not sure what it is.

Ajahn Chah would use the words ‘the reality of non-grasping’ as the definition for Nibbāna: realizing the reality of non-grasping. That helps to put it in a context because the emphasis is on awakening to how we grasp and hold on even to words like ‘Nibbāna’ or ‘Buddhism’ or ‘practice’ or ‘sīla’ or whatever"

https://www.amaravati.org/dhamma-books/the-island/

[L.N.]

... so who perceives this bliss?

It doesn't matter. No answer will make sense in the conventional sense.

We all know what happens when a fire goes out. The flames die down and the fire is gone for good. So when we first learn that the name for the goal of Buddhist practice, nibbana (nirvana), literally means the extinguishing of a fire, it's hard to imagine a deadlier image for a spiritual goal: utter annihilation. It turns out, though, that this reading of the concept is a mistake in translation, not so much of a word as of an image. What did an extinguished fire represent to the Indians of the Buddha's day? Anything but annihilation.

According to the ancient Brahmans, when a fire was extinguished it went into a state of latency. Rather than ceasing to exist, it became dormant and in that state — unbound from any particular fuel — it became diffused throughout the cosmos. When the Buddha used the image to explain nibbana to the Indian Brahmans of his day, he bypassed the question of whether an extinguished fire continues to exist or not, and focused instead on the impossibility of defining a fire that doesn't burn: thus his statement that the person who has gone totally "out" can't be described.

However, when teaching his own disciples, the Buddha used nibbana more as an image of freedom. Apparently, all Indians at the time saw burning fire as agitated, dependent, and trapped, both clinging and being stuck to its fuel as it burned. To ignite a fire, one had to "seize" it. When fire let go of its fuel, it was "freed," released from its agitation, dependence, and entrapment — calm and unconfined. This is why Pali poetry repeatedly uses the image of extinguished fire as a metaphor for freedom. In fact, this metaphor is part of a pattern of fire imagery that involves two other related terms as well. Upadana, or clinging, also refers to the sustenance a fire takes from its fuel. Khandha means not only one of the five "heaps" (form, feeling, perception, thought processes, and consciousness) that define all conditioned experience, but also the trunk of a tree. Just as fire goes out when it stops clinging and taking sustenance from wood, so the mind is freed when it stops clinging to the khandhas.

Thus the image underlying nibbana is one of freedom. The Pali commentaries support this point by tracing the word nibbana to its verbal root, which means "unbinding." What kind of unbinding? The texts describe two levels. One is the unbinding in this lifetime, symbolized by a fire that has gone out but whose embers are still warm. This stands for the enlightened arahant, who is conscious of sights and sounds, sensitive to pleasure and pain, but freed from passion, aversion, and delusion. The second level of unbinding, symbolized by a fire so totally out that its embers have grown cold, is what the arahant experiences after this life. All input from the senses cools away and he/she is totally freed from even the subtlest stresses and limitations of existence in space and time.

The Buddha insists that this level is indescribable, even in terms of existence or nonexistence, because words work only for things that have limits. All he really says about it — apart from images and metaphors — is that one can have foretastes of the experience in this lifetime, and that it's the ultimate happiness, something truly worth knowing.

So the next time you watch a fire going out, see it not as a case of annihilation, but as a lesson in how freedom is to be found in letting go.

"Nibbana", by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 8 March 2011, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... bbana.html .

[pegembara]

There's the conditioned and there's the unconditioned and the realisation that they coexist. Form and emptiness.

The conditioned includes all the sights, sounds, smells, tastes. touch, feelings, thoughts, impressions etc. They arise and pass.
The unconditioned has been there all along but because one gets caught up in the conditioned that the unconditioned is not seen. Glimpses of it may be found in the gaps between the arisings.

https://www.amaravati.org/audio/accepti ... nditioned/

[DooDoot]

Glimpses of it may be found in the gaps between the arisings.

https://www.amaravati.org/audio/accepti ... nditioned/

This doesn't sounds like the Nibbana of the Pali suttas.

[DooDoot]

I can understand the bit that says that nibbana is the end of all that is conditioned. No more rebirth in the realm of kama, rupa or arupa cause they are all subjected to ceasing...

The following is the most basic definition, from the Pali suttas:

This, bhikkhu, is a designation for the element of Nibbāna: the removal of lust, the removal of hatred, the removal of delusion. The destruction of the taints is spoken of in that way.

https://suttacentral.net/en/sn45.7

But it also says that nibbana is not non-existence. It is not nothingness. It is merely the supreme bliss, the supermundane bliss, the ultimate, the realization of your true core.... so who perceives this bliss?

The mind perceives Nibbana.

There are two types of Nibbana: (i) Nibbana experienced here-&-now by the mind; & (ii) Nibbana inferred in relation to the end of sense experience at the termination of life. This is basic theory, which should be at least understood intellectually:

Bhikkhus, there are these two Nibbāna-elements. What are the two? The Nibbāna-element with residue left and the Nibbāna-element with no residue left.

What, bhikkhus, is the Nibbāna-element with residue left? Here a bhikkhu is an arahant, one whose taints are destroyed, the holy life fulfilled, who has done what had to be done, laid down the burden, attained the goal, destroyed the fetters of being, completely released through final knowledge. However, his five sense faculties remain unimpaired, by which he still experiences what is agreeable and disagreeable and feels pleasure and pain. It is the extinction of attachment, hate, and delusion in him that is called the Nibbāna-element with residue left.

Now what, bhikkhus, is the Nibbāna-element with no residue left? Here a bhikkhu is an arahant … completely released through final knowledge. For him, here in this very life, all that is experienced, not being delighted in, will be extinguished. That, bhikkhus, is called the Nibbāna-element with no residue left.

https://suttacentral.net/en/iti44

[BlueLotus]

Why is this shi* so hard to attend?

[BlueLotus]

What do you want to know?
The Nibbana before death or after death.

I would say "after death" and then u would be parroting some reply like "but, it cannot be understood with our mundane perceptions". You know what? F#@$ it!

[SarathW]

I would say "after death"

Which means you know what Nibbna in this life isn't it?
Then Nibbana after death is the same as the Nibbana while you alive except there is no five aggregate.

[BlueLotus]

I would say "after death"

Which means you know what Nibbna in this life isn't it?
Then Nibbana after death is the same as the Nibbana while you alive except there is no five aggregate.

I dont get it...

[SarathW]

It is not possible to understand Nibbana by words.
You have to become a practicing monk at least to get a taste of Nibbna.
However, Sotapanna also has some idea about the Nibbana.

[pegembara]

I have heard that on one occasion Ven. Sariputta was staying near Rajagaha in the Bamboo Grove, the Squirrels' Feeding Sanctuary. There he said to the monks, "This Unbinding is "pleasant", friends. This Unbinding is pleasant."

When this was said, Ven. Udayin said to Ven. Sariputta, "But what is the pleasure here, my friend, where there is nothing felt?"

"Just that is the pleasure here, my friend: where there is nothing felt. There are these five strings of sensuality.

"Furthermore, there is the case where a monk, with the complete transcending of the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception, enters & remains in the cessation of perception & feeling. And, having seen [that] with discernment, his mental fermentations are completely ended. So by this line of reasoning it may be known how Unbinding is pleasant."

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html

"There is, monks, an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated. If there were not that unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, there would not be the case that emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated would be discerned. But precisely because there is an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated is discerned."

— Ud 8.3

"Dependent on the eye & forms there arises consciousness at the eye. The meeting of the three is contact. With contact as a requisite condition, there arises what is felt either as pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain. If, when touched by a feeling of pleasure, one does not relish it, welcome it, or remain fastened to it, then one's passion-obsession doesn't get obsessed. If, when touched by a feeling of pain, one does not sorrow, grieve, or lament, beat one's breast or become distraught, then one's resistance obsession doesn't get obsessed. If, when touched by a feeling of neither pleasure nor pain, one discerns, as it actually is present, the origination, passing away, allure, drawback, & escape from that feeling, then one's ignorance-obsession doesn't get obsessed. That a person — through abandoning passion-obsession with regard to a feeling of pleasure, through abolishing resistance-obsession with regard to a feeling of pain, through uprooting ignorance-obsession with regard to a feeling of neither pleasure nor pain, through abandoning ignorance and giving rise to clear knowing — would put an end to suffering & stress in the here & now: such a thing is possible.

"Dependent on the ear & sounds...

"Dependent on the nose & aromas...

"Dependent on the tongue & flavors...

"Dependent on the body & tactile sensations...

"Dependent on the intellect & ideas


"Seeing thus, the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones grows disenchanted with the eye, disenchanted with forms, disenchanted with consciousness at the eye, disenchanted with contact at the eye, disenchanted with feeling, disenchanted with craving.

"He grows disenchanted with the ear...

"He grows disenchanted with the nose...

"He grows disenchanted with the tongue...

"He grows disenchanted with the body...

"He grows disenchanted with the intellect, disenchanted with ideas, disenchanted with consciousness at the intellect, disenchanted with contact at the intellect, disenchanted with feeling, disenchanted with craving. Disenchanted, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion, he is fully released. With full release, there is the knowledge, 'Fully released.' He discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.'"

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html

Every action produces a resultant of mind, matter, six sense-bases, feeling etc. Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching and thinking are all manifestations of the result of action or vipāka.

In Nibbāna, the round of suffering comes to a peaceful end. Hence cessation of suffering is Nibbāna. In other words, when the Path of an Arahat is reached, the round of suffering ceases. Nibbāna is, therefore, peace established with the annihilation of suffering. For the sake of brevity, please note only this– Nibbāna is synonymous with absolute peace

As the yogī continues to note and reflect on the rise and fall of the five aggregates through the six sense doors, sati, mindfulness, gains strength and he becomes aware of the rise and fall instantly as they occur. Thereby he establishespīti-passaddhi, joy and tranquility. This knowledge of the rise and fall of nāmarūpa is udayabbaya ñāṇa.

Further reflection would reveal the hollow nature of conditioned things with the disappearance of their form and substance. Both the knowing mind, the object known dissolve as quickly as they present themselves. This knowledge with regard to dissolution of things is known as bhaṅga ñāṇa.

Application of bhaṅga ñāṇa gives rise to the establishment of bhaya ñāṇa which looks at all dissolving things with fear or repugnance. Consequently it will lead to the development of saṅkharuppekkhā ñāṇa, knowledge of equanimity towards all conditioned things, which regard all kamma-formations neither as repugnant nor as pleasurable. As this wisdom grows by continued practice of insight-meditation the knowing mind gets absorbed in the annihilation of all nama, rūpa and saṅkhāra (kamma-formations). The realization of this knowledge is the realization of the Noble Path and its fruition.

https://suvacobhikkhu.wordpress.com/the ... i-sayadaw/

[pegembara]

In essence, then, the Middle Teaching[23] describes two processes:

1. Samudaya: the origination mode of the Dependent Origination cycle: ignorance => volitional impulses ... becoming => birth => aging and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair = the arising of suffering.

2. Nirodha: the cessation mode of the Dependent Origination cycle: cessation of ignorance => cessation of volitional impulses => cessation of consciousness ... cessation of aging and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair = the cessation of suffering

The reason we must deal with the cause of suffering (samudaya) is because we are confronted with a problem (dukkha), the solution of which demands a search for its causes. When the cause of suffering is understood, we recognize that the solution of the problem consists in the eradication of those causes. Thus the process of cessation of suffering (nirodha) is described. In the Middle Teaching, the cessation of suffering includes not only the process for bringing about the cessation of suffering, but also the state of cessation itself, which is Nibbana.

http://www.dhammatalks.net/Books3/Payut ... nation.htm

"When a noble disciple thus fully sees the arising and cessation of the world as it is, he is said to be endowed with perfect view, with perfect vision; to have attained the true Dhamma, to possess the initiate's knowledge and skill, to have entered the stream of Dhamma, to be a noble disciple replete with the purifying knowledge, one who is at the very door of the Deathless." [S.II.79]

[BlueLotus]

It is not possible to understand Nibbana by words.
You have to become a practicing monk at least to get a taste of Nibbna.
However, Sotapanna also has some idea about the Nibbana.

Okay. I like it.