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When someone reaches Nirvana, where do they go?
Vagabond
Explorer
When someone reaches Nirvana, where do they go when they die? I'm going to assume there are several answers to this question, seeing that one can't prove or disprove it. I'm sure many buddhists believe in heaven, from what I've heard too. Someone enlighten me, lol
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As far as I know.
Jason
It reduces a self centered attitude. In Christianity you have total faith in God, which helps reduce self centered attitude in Buddhism there is the idea of no soul.
Jason
Jason
Realizing Nirvana is like a schizophrenic suddenly being cured. Think of it that way... we're all insane.
With metta,
Actually, there aren't any answers to this question
This is how the Buddha answered this question:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.072.than.html
"But, Master Gotama, the monk whose mind is thus released: Where does he reappear?"
"'Reappear,' Vaccha, doesn't apply."
"In that case, Master Gotama, he does not reappear."
"'Does not reappear,' Vaccha, doesn't apply."
"...both does & does not reappear."
"...doesn't apply."
"...neither does nor does not reappear."
"...doesn't apply."
"How is it, Master Gotama, when Master Gotama is asked ...he says, '...doesn't apply' in each case. At this point, Master Gotama, I am befuddled; at this point, confused. The modicum of clarity coming to me from your earlier conversation is now obscured."
"Of course you're befuddled, Vaccha. Of course you're confused. Deep, Vaccha, is this phenomenon, hard to see, hard to realize, tranquil, refined, beyond the scope of conjecture, subtle, to-be-experienced by the wise. For those with other views, other practices, other satisfactions, other aims, other teachers, it is difficult to know. That being the case, I will now put some questions to you. Answer as you see fit. What do you think, Vaccha: If a fire were burning in front of you, would you know that, 'This fire is burning in front of me'?"
"...yes..."
"And suppose someone were to ask you, Vaccha, 'This fire burning in front of you, dependent on what is it burning?' Thus asked, how would you reply?"
"...I would reply, 'This fire burning in front of me is burning dependent on grass & timber as its sustenance.'"
"If the fire burning in front of you were to go out, would you know that, 'This fire burning in front of me has gone out'?"
"...yes..."
"And suppose someone were to ask you, 'This fire that has gone out in front of you, in which direction from here has it gone? East? West? North? Or south?' Thus asked, how would you reply?"
"That doesn't apply, Master Gotama. 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, Vaccha, any physical form by which one describing the Tathagata (Buddha) would describe him:... 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.
I'd agree that after death, there's a state most can't imagine now. In Vajrayana, this is called the bardo state. I wish I could remember which thread it was where someone said enlightened beings still have karma to work out from past lives, so they return in order to do that. But I think the historical Buddha probably didn't have any neg. karma left.
re: Thanissaro Bhikku's statement: how would anyone be described as existing after death, anyway? There's no self, not to mention no body or spirit. There's only the "very subtle mind", if that.
Since beings are numberless, delusions inexhaustible and dharma gates boundless, that's likely to take some time!
As for Thanissaro, it's a good question. I think other Theravadins who disagree with his position have asked this (or similar questions) also.
''In buddhism you can find the distinction between ordinary beings and superior beings, or the Arya. This basis can be made on their respective levels of consciousness or realization. ANyone who has gained direct intuitive realization of emptiness, or the ultimate nature of reality, is said to be an Arya according to Mahayana, and anyone who has not gained that realization is called an ordinary being. In relation to the three realms, the subtler the level of consciousness an individual attains, the subtler the realm of existence he can inhabit.
For example, if a person's ordinary mode of being is very much within the context of desire and attachment- that is to say that he tends to develop attachment to whatever he perceives, like desirable forms or pleasant sensations and so on - then such attachment to physical objects, thought processes and sensory experiences leads to a form of existence which is confined within the desire realm, both now and in the future. At the same time, there are people who have transcended attachment to objects of immediate perception and physical sensations, but who are attached to the inner states of joy or bliss. That type of person creates causes that will lead him or her to future rebirths where physical existence has a much more refined form.
Furthermore, there are those who have transcended attachment not only to physical sensations, but also to pleasurable inner sensations of joy and bliss. They tend more towards a state of equanimity. Their level of consciousness is much more subtler than the other two, but they are still attached to a particular mode of being. The grosser levels of their mind can lead to the fourth level of the form realm, while the subtler attachment towards equanimity leads to the formless realms. So this is the way we relate to three realms to level of consciousness.
On the basis of this cosmology, Buddhism talks about the infinite process of the universe, coming into being and going through a process of dissolution before again coming into being. This process has to be understood in relation to the three realms of existence. It is from the third level of the form realms downwards that the world is subject to continuous process of arising and dissolution. From the fourth level of the form realm upwards, which includes the formless realm, the world is beyond this process which we could call the evolution of the physical universe.''
b@eze
Bucky
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/likefire/index.html
Regards
Bucky
b@eze
regards
I checked out that text, read the abstract. It says: after death "the Tathagata dwells with unrestricted awareness". So apparently the Buddha gets to have something resembling a permanent self. Of some sort. While the rest of us just get zip, or if were Mahayanists, we get a "very subtle mind". Although upekka said recently that Theravada also seems to allow for something akin to the very subtle mind, after death.
But the Buddha also said, in Bucky's link, that the nature of the Tathagata after death is an imponderable. But the OP probably didn't intend to ascertain the nature of the Tathagata after death, but of us more ordinary beings. We've already answered that from the Mahayana perspective. We, or what's left of us (the "very subtle mind", which really isn't "us" anymore, they say), go to the bardo, Vagabond. Now it's the Theravadans' turn to have a go at the OP. Could you explain this, Vincenzi?
Unless I'm missing something, which I await breathlessly for someone to point out to me.
If Zen practitioners go to the laundromat...
Vajrayana practitioners end up in the diamond lane...
Well knock me down, we haven't had one of these along for oooohh... ten minutes!
Long time no see!!
Whatever happened to personal research and in-depth study??
regards
What do you say?
Whether this re-evaluation of the image of fire — seeing its extinguishing as preferable to its burning — predated the founding of Buddhism, was influenced by it, or simply paralleled it, no one can say for sure, as there are no firm dates for any of the Upaniṣads. At any rate, in both stages of the Vedic attitude toward fire, the thought of a fire going out carried no connotations of going out of existence at all. Instead, it implied a return to an omnipresent, immortal state. This has led some scholars to assume that, in using the image of an extinguished fire to illustrate the goal he taught, the Buddha was simply adopting the Vedic position wholesale and meant it to carry the same implications as the last quotation above: a pleasant eternal existence for a tranquil soul.
But when we look at how the Buddha actually used the image of extinguished fire in his teachings, we find that he approached the Vedic idea of latent fire from another angle entirely: If latent fire is everywhere all at once, it is nowhere in particular. If it is conceived as always present in everything, it has to be so loosely defined that it has no defining characteristics, nothing by which it might be known at all. Thus, instead of using the subsistence of latent fire as an image for immortality, he uses the diffuse, indeterminate nature of extinguished fire as understood by the Vedists to illustrate the absolute indescribability of the person who has reached the Buddhist goal.
My personal interpretation of that: If nirvana is non-duality, emptiness, unrestricted awareness or whatever name you want to call it, then there is nothing left that could be called a Buddha, because if there was, then it would not be non-duality or emptiness. Does that make sense?
That IS Nirvana.