Where is the Buddha now?

betaboy

Please, no frivolous answers. If nirvana means freedom from the cycle of birth and death, it means that the being that attained nirvana is no longer in the body or in the material world. So how and where does it exist?

SattvaPaul

Here's one answer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trikaya

riverflow

"There is nothing whatever which differentiates samsara from nirvana; and there is nothing whatever which differentiates nirvana from samsara. The extreme limit of nirvana is also the extreme limit of samsara; there is not the slightest bit of difference between these two." ~Nagarjuna

Nirvana isn't somePLACE else.

There real question is: What is not Buddha?

tmottes

I would say he "exists" in the same manner that you and I do now. We don't see that because we are blinded by our ignorance.

Cloud

If referring to Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism... he died, and that's not a frivolous answer. He was born, lived, sought and obtained freedom from suffering, taught for many years and then died. From the moment that he was liberated though, he knew that there was no "being" in any of that, and was beyond such notions of birth and death of separate beings. He was free of the delusions that keep us clinging to "self" which is no-thing at all. When we fear death, when we seek a way to survive death in some way, this is avoidance... this is creating the delusion of a self to avoid suffering, but really that delusion keeps us bound in fear.

His teachings remain (or rather forms of Buddhism present teachings that are attributed to him) and he exists only as a memory. His good actions for the benefit of all of us are still evident today, but they will also be forgotten some day. It's not about ending a cycle of rebirth, it's about ending a cycle of suffering. If we just shift our thoughts from trying to survive natural death to trying to eliminate our aversion to death (to our nature), it's a step in the right direction to end our delusions and suffering.

Mountains

There is no Buddha. The Buddha was a man. The personality is impermanent. The energy (chi, life force, whatever) is what is left when the body is gone. Pick up a stone, or look at a flower, or look into your lover's eyes. There is the Buddha. Look in the mirror. There is the Buddha. Look at the moon. There is the Buddha.

Spaceless

"There real question is: What is not Buddha?

And what is not God?

betaboy

Cloud and Mountains,

Doesn't this make Buddhism annihilationist?

Cloud

@betaboy
No, because you see, there's nothing created to destroy. The realization of emptiness is the goal, to see that there is neither anything to be eternal nor anything to be annihilated. There is only flowing change, no self.

Is the tree not the acorn? Is the wood of the house not the tree? Are the ashes not the wood? There's no solid/separate "thing", only change. Conditionality. It is in the mind where we try to stop the change and define things, but all is empty of self. The mind flows against change because we are ignorant of Anicca(Impermanence)-Dukkha(Unsatisfactoriness)-Anatta(Not-Self) on a very fundamental level. Following the Noble Eightfold Path can correct our wrong views and bring peace.