Nirvana

searching_samsara

Who can possess the jewel of realisation?
Can it be earned?
Not likely.
Actions with expectations of reward yeild more
actions with more expectations of reward .

A vicious cycle

Nisaragadatta Maharaj;i>"Anyone who imagines actions will bring about realisation are deluded"Nirvana means extinction

Can it be earned?

Nisaragadatta MaharajWhen asked about spiritual practice, (sadhana) said, "One should effort and effort at their sadhana, then and only then will they realise that effort will get them nowhere"

Not a one can have it,posses it or experience it

You and it are consciousness, so you have nothing to do with anything.

You appear out of consciousness
Consciousness did not appear from you

Nirvana means extinction

(jokingly) Before you leave don't forget to turn off the light of awareness

Nirvana means extinction
The Light Goes Out
Nirvana means extinction

how

Just how many folks here are worried about not getting the definition of Nirvana just right?
I mean, does anyone really think that on the cusp of Nirvana, the adept in such a position, falls short for the want of such a definition?

Dam it all, so darn close and now if only I could remember what it really was.

lobster

Flaming moths
http://www.mysticsaint.info/2008/07/moth-and-flame-sufi-metaphor.html

Garuda/phoenix
'The Dzogchen Tantras, the ancient teachings from which the bardo instructions come, speak of a mythical bird, the garuda, which is born fully grown. This image symbolizes our primordial nature, which is already completely perfect. The garuda chick has all its wing feathers fully developed inside the egg, but it cannot fly before it hatches. Only at the moment when the shell cracks open can it burst out and soar into the sky. Similarly, the masters tell us, the qualities of buddhahood are veiled by the body, and as soon as the body is discarded, they will be radiantly displayed'

The jewel in the lotus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Om_mani_padme_hum

Swing low, sweet chariot,
Comin' for to carry me home;
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Comin' for to carry me home.

Citta

searching_samsara said:

Who can possess the jewel of realisation?
Can it be earned?
Not likely.
Actions with expectations of reward yeild more
actions with more expectations of reward .

A vicious cycle

Nisaragadatta Maharaj;i>"Anyone who imagines actions will bring about realisation are deluded"Nirvana means extinction

Can it be earned?

Nisaragadatta MaharajWhen asked about spiritual practice, (sadhana) said, "One should effort and effort at their sadhana, then and only then will they realise that effort will get them nowhere"

Not a one can have it,posses it or experience it

You and it are consciousness, so you have nothing to do with anything.

You appear out of consciousness
Consciousness did not appear from you

Nirvana means extinction

(jokingly) Before you leave don't forget to turn off the light of awareness

Nirvana means extinction
The Light Goes Out
Nirvana means extinction

No it doesn't. That is an old canard that should have been laid to rest once and for all. You are being over-literal about the origin of the term.

misecmisc1

My thinking says: Nirvana means extinction - but not extinction of body or mind, rather extinction of ignorance from mind which implies extinction of defilements from mind - the extinction of suffering because of extinction of craving and clinging - the ceasing of all conditions - the unconditioned. Still Nirvana cannot be defined because at the moment, when Nirvana would be directly experienced, thinking would not happen and the moment in which thinking is happening, Nirvana would not be experienced in that moment. So Nirvana can only be directly experienced and not explained/understood exactly as it is.

Citta

Your last sentence is spot on. To introduce concepts like 'extinction ' is in my view, unhelpful.
The word means ' to blow out' as in blowing out a candle. Not extinction.
And a too literal application of' 'blowing out' is not very helpful either...

Lazy_eye

I understand it as the breaking of the chain of dependent origination and the cessation of "this whole mass of suffering". With the chain broken, there is no further "becoming" (bhava). The arahant goes on living until the remaining fuel is burned up. After that, no basis for re-arising of the aggregates or consciousness (viññana).

Mahayana and Vajrayana seem to have a different take on it though, about which I'm interested in learning more...

Citta

With respect Lazy _eye , does that not strike you as an assembly job put together to patch up a stable door after the horse has bolted ? It does me.

Lazy_eye

@Citta, how do you mean? Can you explain a bit further?

If you're asking me, I think the standard formulation of "dependent origination" is probably an assembly job of sorts -- there may have been two or three different chains that ended up lumped together as the "twelve links". But that doesn't really have much bearing on the topic of nibbana, in my opinion. The basic point is that once you remove the causes of becoming, then becoming ceases. In the Pali suttas, at least, there's no provision for some sort of ongoing conscious existence outside the five aggregates. So when dependent origination ceases, the aggregates stop arising and conscious existence eventually ceases (once the existing processes are played out).

That's my understanding at least...but I'm waiting for you to elaborate on yours. Also, you said earlier that cessation is a "canard", so maybe you can say more about that too.

Citta

I didn't say that cessation was a canard..I said that extinction as a translation of Nirvana was.
But my point is that it seems to me that explanations of processes that elsewhere are said to be beyond concepts amounts to a kind of failure of nerve around the time of the first councils.
The Buddha's ( whatever his reality ) successors seem to have baulked at the idea of promoting a creed whose outcome was said to be inexpressible in words although it was its founder that said so...and so they came up with a system of graded awards " Stream Winner ", " Once Returner " and so on...as coloured ribands in the great Tournament Of Life...a clumsy and mechanistic solution to a problem of their own making...
The fact is no one is able to express in any form of words what Nirvana or its Pali cousin Nibbana means.
A fact which does not result in any observable cessation in attempts to define the undefinable.

Lazy_eye

Ok, I see what you're saying now. I wonder if the issue here though is that nibbana is not a thing. It results from letting go of things. Not being a thing, how could it be defined?

It would be like leveling a house and then trying to explain the resulting space in terms of a house.

Jeffrey

Nirvana is the endless Buddha qualities left over when views and prapancha cease. But there still are these qualities. If that were not the case the path would end at prajna paramita rather than tantra.

jll

There is a distinction between nibbana n parinibbana.
the mind n body ends at parinibbana.

misecmisc1 said:

My thinking says: Nirvana means extinction - but not extinction of body or mind, rather extinction of ignorance from mind which implies extinction of defilements from mind - the extinction of suffering because of extinction of craving and clinging - the ceasing of all conditions - the unconditioned. Still Nirvana cannot be defined because at the moment, when Nirvana would be directly experienced, thinking would not happen and the moment in which thinking is happening, Nirvana would not be experienced in that moment. So Nirvana can only be directly experienced and not explained/understood exactly as it is.

Jeffrey

Didn't Buddha say it is an imponderable what happens to tathagata upon dissolution?

Of course he also gave the analogy of the fire running out of fuel. But I specifically remember this as also an imponderable.

lobster

Didn't Buddha say it is an imponderable what happens to tathagata upon dissolution?

I believe she said, 'goodbye and thanks for all the fish'
?
. . . wait that was Granma Lobster, the mice . . . no wait . . .
. . . ah the astral dolphins . . .

. . . now back to Nirvana before we get carried away . . . [white van on hold]


In effect are we asking a musician to play us their most perfect song, without the distraction of notes and music, a painter to express the essence of art without the limitations of form . . . ?

The truth is can we listen without hearing, see without presentation and know without knowledge?

We can-can.

Floating_Abu

When the Buddha was asked, “Do you teach annihilation? Is nirvana the end of things as we know them?” he responded, “I teach only one form of annihilation: the extinction of greed, the extinction of hatred, the extinction of delusion. This I call nirvana.”

- Jack Kornfield

zenmyste

Floating_Abu said:

When the Buddha was asked, “Do you teach annihilation? Is nirvana the end of things as we know them?” he responded, “I teach only one form of annihilation: the extinction of greed, the extinction of hatred, the extinction of delusion. This I call nirvana.”

- Jack Kornfield

Always makes me laugh when people quote others...

Floating Abu said that Jack Kornfield said that Buddha said ...... Etc etc...

Haha, what is it that YOU think...

Jack kornfield could be wrong, how the hell does he know what the buddha said 2500 years ago??

Nothing was writen till about 500 years 'after' buddha died!!

That is alot of chinese whispers!!

Citta

Well here's another quote for you Zenmyste...


' There are levels of understanding of Nirvana..the most profound understanding is the realisation that Nirvana is not about simply losing something. Nirvana is innate. It is never not the case. '.

Traktung Rinpoche.

Florian

Lazy_eye said:

Ok, I see what you're saying now. I wonder if the issue here though is that nibbana is not a thing. It results from letting go of things. Not being a thing, how could it be defined?

It would be like leveling a house and then trying to explain the resulting space in terms of a house.

Good point. We are talking about something beyond the categories of thought, or trying to.

According to the Abhidharma, Nirvana is not a thing but it is a phenomenon. It is defined only apophatically but is nevertheless closely defined since it can be defined by negation, as Nagarjuna does. Cf also 'Neti, neti' etc.

Floating_Abu

zenmyste said:

Haha, what is it that YOU think...

Well, dear Sir I would be inclined to agree with what Floating Abu said Jack Kornfield said Buddha said

I have seen the word "extinguishment" used as well in these contexts also.

Cheers!

Florian

It is common, and for good reason, to put ones own views in the mouths of someone else when stating them, partly for reasons of modesty. Thus I have heard...

So quoting someone who is quoting some else who is quoting someone else need not be a sign that the speaker is relying on received views.

Floating_Abu

It's also often easier when someone has already said it, plus the Buddha ain't a bad reference at the end of the day. And with the plethora of opinions on the internet spoken by anyone (said person is a good example ) it can be useful to refer to established or reputable teachers IMHO.

Citta

Florian said:

It is common, and for good reason, to put ones own views in the mouths of someone else when stating them, partly for reasons of modesty. Thus I have heard...

So quoting someone who is quoting some else who is quoting someone else need not be a sign that the speaker is relying on received views.

Quite so. There are very few agreed translations of even the more graspable of Buddhist concepts..basic stuff like 'dukkha ' and ' anicca', not to speak of the really difficult concepts like Nirvana. I suspect that in the end it comes down to what resonates for us individually.
There is absolutely nothing wrong in quoting accepted teachers . It is both unnecessary and may well be
a block to discussion to rely on our own understanding...there are people who have reflected on these issues to a greater depth than most of us. Let's stand on their shoulders when gazing out to sea.
I think it is important to quote accurately of course. I have learned not to rely on my own memory in this area..and it is also important to recognise one of the bugbears of internet communication...to whit, quoting soundbites out of context which skew the meaning. All too common I am afraid.

Jeffrey

Florian said:

Lazy_eye said:

Ok, I see what you're saying now. I wonder if the issue here though is that nibbana is not a thing. It results from letting go of things. Not being a thing, how could it be defined?

It would be like leveling a house and then trying to explain the resulting space in terms of a house.

Good point. We are talking about something beyond the categories of thought, or trying to.

According to the Abhidharma, Nirvana is not a thing but it is a phenomenon. It is defined only apophatically but is nevertheless closely defined since it can be defined by negation, as Nagarjuna does. Cf also 'Neti, neti' etc.

With only neti neti there can be a subtle prapanca towards negation. Buddha nature does manifest it is just that it cannot be defined. But that does not mean it is not there whatsoever. It would be like "prove that I love my mother". You would have to take my word for it; you couldn't prove or disprove that I had a feeling. You could look at time spent with her or some measurable quality, but it couldn't prove my state of mind. At a given time I might be quite upset over something in our relationship and the love is not manifest. This is how things are. They come closer and further together, but never go away. This is assuming rebirth and so forth, but you could probably manage to make the mandala idea work even in a finite space. It would just be a more limited outlook.

Anyways, just my 2 cents.

searching_samsara

adding frost to snow

Florian

@Jeffrey - I take your point. But neti neti does not refer to Buddha-nature. It refers to anything you can point to and say 'this'. So it is a universal mantra, a rejection of the duality that creates 'this' and 'that'. But as you seem to be saying, it would be easy to mistake it for nihilism.