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What is the difference between Moksha and Nirvana?
Wisdom23
Veteran
as described
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moksha
That was my understanding which the ever prevalent Wikipedia has confirmed.
In Vedanta moksa (liberation) is the realization of truth or satya which will ever be (it is unchanging in other words). It transcends the world of created nâma-rûpa (names and forms/subjects and objects).
As for nirvana it is eternal by nature (nicca-sabhavatta ), it is without an end, beyond death and cessation; it is immortal.
Both transcend samsara (cycles of birth and death).
I think they're quite similar.
Yep, I think it's "You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to'.
No,
I believe there is something a little more subtle between the interpretations of these simple words.
Moksha intimates a release from samsara (i.e. suffering and rebirth), whereas
Nirvana represents a transcendental state which when attained is completely empty of everything including Moksha. One emancipates the other.
I like being a pedant...
Mettha
It is subtle.
In the Hindu model, we awaken to suchness or eternal being, in Dharma we finish the eternal being of becoming . . .
Suchness is empty, Nothing is form.
As the Yogi said to the Buddha
But Nirvana is release from samsara, so I don't understand your comment.
Nirvana and samsara are just heads and tails I am coming to understand, but am happy to be told where I'm going wrong.
I think the middle way is avoiding the perils and pitfalls of these concepts, and just like to be in the present moment where both exist and do not exist simultaneously, but thats just another conceptual framework to knot the mind up further. LOL. Can't explain it further. It's beyond words and concepts... I am becoming very happy in the midstream that is just being in the present, and that is not going anywhere.
Mettha to the mind knots, may they come undone for everyone.
Hindu Moksha is being freed or released from the notion of egoity, it is like breaking the vase so that the space inside and the space outside are no longer differentiated, there is only all-pervasive Presence like air. There is just the oceanic Brahman which is pure-consciousness-existence-bliss, which is the true Self, no longer veiled by the limitations of egoity. Moksha is a state of realization and absorption in that infinite True Self.
Nirvana taught by Buddha is the elimination of craving, aggression and delusion. He rejects any notion of a Self, or an Atman that is Brahman, he rejects notion of an eternal substance as being salvation. He teaches 'in the seen just the seen, in the heard just the heard, ... no you in terms of that'. He teaches that the insight of anicca, dukkha and anatta leads to the deconstruction of proliferation, leads to dispassion and relinquishment of craving, attachments, and the arising of wisdom ends delusion. It is the end of any view and sense of a self/Self, it is not the reabsorption in some kind of true self.
Also, check these out:
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2011/10/zen-exploration-of-bahiya-sutta.html
It depends who you ask. I might define Nirvana (or intuit) as different from my friend who is also Buddhist. One hindu might define Moksha different than another.
I believe moksha (hindu) is the same as Vimokkha (pali). (1)
The difference between moksha and nirvana is that nirvana is final liberation (from birth and death).
So many words and ideas grasping after supremacy. I think Moksha and Nirvana both are release from all "this".
Not being a Hindu or Advaitin, this is just an opinion.
There is the small self. Then there is the big Self or Brahman/Atman/God. Having broken identification with the body, feelings, thoughts, intentions etc. there appears the pure consciousness(You are that) that is taken to be the true self.
In Buddhism all things are not self, even that so called consciousness (Sabbe dhamma anatta)
And one Buddhist might define nirvana different from another
Yes like samsara is really nirvana.
What do I mean by that? Striving for liberation only cages you. In Mahayna buddhism, it is not a great secret is that we are liberated, it's nothing really. When you look at your life and see it from the perspective of an illusory self you feel that it is all wrong and think that someone else out there is getting all the glory, and you the crap so you try to liberate yourself from that state, and in doing so it becomes more and more uncomfortable! It's like trying to squeeze through the eye of a needle - it can't be done, so if you choose the middle way and stay in the present, where everything is being liberated simultaneously, Samsara flips to Nirvana. And you might just laugh out loud.
That's my view at this present moment anyway, feel free to challenge it, and see where that gets you - hopefully all tied up in knots, and then the sense of it might filter through ... \ lol / ...