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Nirvana - relative Nothingess?
While I was reading Jason`s excellent essay, it came to my mind what I read some years before about Nirvana. Arthur Schopenhauer claimed that Nirvana is a relative nothingness because no term of samsara fits to describe nirvana. This idea of nirvana is a transcendent understanding of it, not an immanent one like in later Mahayana. Although Jason showed that Nirvana is refered to as actualites in the Canon, like state or element, when it is described, it is often described negativly. It is often the absence of samsaric elements. Absence of craving, of greed, hate and delusion. Schopenhauer argued that philosophy has to be immanent, it can only describe what is there in the outside world, while Mystics try to describe transcendent experiences, which a philosopher can not. I argue that descriptions of nirvana like "highest happiness" and so on are mystic descriptions of what can not be objectivly described. The confusion comes into play because mystics, or generally people who experienced nirvana who describe it positivly, use samsaric terms which do not fit nirvana. My argument is that nirvana can only objectivly described in negative terms, the absence of something, because all terms we have are from samsara. Positve descriptions like nirvana as highest happiness are of no objective value, they merely give a hint of what the person experienced but are not nirvana itself. After all, there is nothing to fear of a relative nothingness, because it is not absolute, it merely is the absence of everything we can imagine.
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Comments
I don't know.
Will I recognize it if I reach it?
Maybe.
Will I be able to tell you what it is like?
Probably not.
Remember the Heart Sutra:
"True attainment is not attainment with nothing to attain."
The Buddha & Venerable Sariputta explained Nirvana on numerous occassions in the Theravada suttas. In brief, Nirvana is the here & now cessation of greed, hatred & delusion.
The Buddha's Nirvana is vastly different than the sphere of nothingness described by Lao Tse and the Heart Sutra.
Before his enlightenment, the Buddha-To-Be rejected the sphere of 'no-thing' as enlightenment or Nirvana.
The Buddha spoke 84,000 dhammas for 45 years rather than Lao Tse's 81 short poems about social morality & non-thinking.
Kind regards
DDhatu
I say, "The Sky is blue."
Who has lied and who has spoken truth?
-Gassho.
The only truth the Buddha was concerned with was whatever truth could end suffering (or approach Nibbana). Buddha said: Whether the sky is blue or big has no relevance to freedom from suffering. However, all Buddhas comprehend the sky is impermanent, unsatisfactory, empty of self and merely elements (dhatus). This is the truth of the Buddhas because it ends suffering.
You'd have to be if, as the sutta states, you have "seen this [impermanence] with wisdom and turned away from suffering."
Correct?:)
The experience of "fully enlightened Buddha" is in every moment. From that perspective, the intent of the practice is learning to rest in that experience. It is possible to experience the things which Dhatu is speaking of without "being" a "fully enlightened Buddha," whatever that might mean.
The Buddha did not teach "'being or becoming' a 'Fully Enlightened Buddha(TM)'".
The Buddha saidt that his teachings were aimed, in part, at the cessation of chasing after such illusions of status (in the Simile of the Snake, MN 22.20).
Nor did the Buddha teach that only such a "Fully Enlightened Buddha(TM)" or a Tathagata or an arhant could clearly understand, or, as the Buddha specifically phrased such things, see and know, these things. Such a notion appears to be aimed at controlling the gullible through their own superstitions and ignorance of the Buddha's teachings.
Incorrect. Anyone can see impermanence in things. Anyone can see the difference between realities and the stories we concoct about them. Anyone can see that there is suffering in clinging to these things. And, seeing this with the knowledge that clinging to things that are impermanent, not-self, and given to suffering is seeing with wisdom.
Anyone who sees and knows this can turn away from clinging at any time, and doing so is turning away from suffering. At any time.
Not true. The Buddha's teachings aim to end suffering. The Buddha performed many, many actions in the 45 years he taught after defeating suffering.
You have turned the various discussions into personal attacks and personality projections. You have strayed from the topics and entered into the real HELL of self-view. Words are not hell.
I advised you the Theravadins cannot learn anything from the Heart Sutra because the Nirvana the Buddha reported was not related to regarding things as "nothing" or "non-existent".
The Nirvana the Buddha reported in the Theravada Suttas comes from dispassion, when greed, hatred & delusion end.
It is not related to non-thinking, non-speaking and non-labelling per se.
You need to acknowledge (but not necessarily accept) the distinction that is being made.
In brief, the Tao De Ching and Heart Sutra state non-thinking is Nirvana.
Where as the Buddha said dispassion is Nirvana.
Non-thinking vs dispassion.
This is the topic and disagreement.
This is not a matter of doctrine but a matter of different mental states.
Continuing DD's point: nor is it related to non-acting.
....eight-year-old boys don't know what it is to fall in love...? :skeptical
Or another distinction that grates the Tao/Zen/Advaita view is knowing vs not-knowing.
In Theravada, the suttas say right liberation (samma vimutti) comes from right knowledge (samma nanna) whereas the Tao/Zen/Advaita view is liberation comes from not-knowing.
This is another reason why the Heart Sutra offers little to Theravadins.
In fact, the difference between Theravada and your views is like oil and water.
In my experience, an ounce of right knowledge or clear seeing is worth more than a pound of mindless meditation on nothingness.
An ounce of seeing the world clearly according to its causes & conditions is worth more than a pound of non-dual non-thinking awareness.
It is important we learn to acknowledge (but not necessarily accept) these differences of view.
:buck:
The Buddha can often be found proclaiming in the Suttas:
"Monks, the ending of the effluents is for one who knows & sees, I tell you, not for one who does not know & does not see...."
First of all, you're acting as if the Buddha was himself a "Theravaden" Buddhist, as if your school of the Dhamma had some sort of monopoly on Siddartha Gautama and what he taught. You remind me of Christians who think that Jesus was the first Catholic when in fact he was a Jew. The Buddha did not write down anything he taught...so yes- I see your clinging to the suttas as unhealthy and overly bias because at best any sutta/Sutra is a tool for seeing into our true nature. If studying the Pali scriptures enables you to acheive liberation then great...if some of us acheive liberation by studying the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra then I feel that too is a good thing, but why all this secterianism from you? My views obvously make you angry...so where is that anger coming from, Dharma Datu? I can feel it in your condescending tone in every word you write and others have recognized it as well.
This isn't Northern Ireland and I'm not a Protestant...
No one here has claimed that. The Theravada tradition is not without its own eisegeses.
Straw man, and a personal attack. Again, no one here has claimed that the Buddha was a "Theravadin". However, *all* schools of Buddhism hold the Nikayas to be authoritative.
The Buddha taught that his Dhamma was to be found in the Suttas, and experience shows that this is true. Again, the fox is telling himself the grapes are sour.
So much hyperbole -- you said that you were convinced that it is impossible to explain "Nirvana", and DD pointed out that the Buddha and others described it many times, to which you reacted with defensiveness and personal attacks. His answer was not from a sectarian standpoint; it came from knowledge, experience, and understanding of the Buddha's teachings, as presented in the Suttas, which all schools hold to present the teachings of the Buddha.
More irrelevant personal attacks. Please play the ball, not the man.
See, this is what happens when you adapt a sectarian point of view. Too rigid...too narrow...and a lot of typing that seems designed to convince yourself (that illusionary self, by the way) that what you're saying is the absolute unyielding truth.
Both your attitude and your urgency give away the whole game, but I'm not here to play games. By seeking out distinctions the way you are you take all the beauty and power of the Dharma and reduce it to dry words on even dryer pages that don't do anyone any good at all. If the Pali suttas are so filled with the liberating truth...why is your abuse towards me so utterly empty of either wisdom [Prajna] or compassion [Metta]?
My goal is to liberate all sentient beings from samsara.
What's yours...................................................???:rant:
Validus. It is a mistake to think that one can read the minds of others.
Again, personal attacks (of which your entire post consists) violate the TOS and contribute nothing useful to the discussion.
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Truthfully I see no harm coming from their words. I “feel” you are placing meaning in their words that does not exist. It is often quite difficult to perceive the feeling and attitude coming from text mainly because we cannot see the person and their expressions. Let’s say for instance that they were intentionally trying to be harmful with their words, what good are you doing by attacking back? I think it is extremely important to ask one’s self, what in this moment am I cultivating? If this discussion has created a disturbance in your mind and you focus on it then you are not cultivating the wholesomeness that you should be and instead have started undoing all the hard work you have put forth to bring around the cessation of suffering.
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Focusing on others fault whether they are real or not changes nothing, and in most cases doesn’t even affect the other person, only you. Looking into ones self and asking am I making this situation worse and how can I make it better is much more productive.
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I wish you the best of luck on your journey.
You also didn't answer my question...which meant you did answer it.
There is a huge difference between clarifying what the Buddha taught and "attacking [your] point of view".
Your "question' wasn't really a question.
My question is: what's your goal?
The teachings and practice of the Buddha are.
Very well said, Kenny.
You say that the teachings of the Buddha are important to you-
-to what end?
Please stay on topic.
Again- you say that the teachings of the Buddha are important to you.
Fair enough-but to what end?
[Others will note that the question is not insuling in any way and is a straight-forward query that Stupa keeps running from for reasons I can only begin to guess at]
You are badgering. I suggest you cease the personal harangue and return to the topic: