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Desire to attain Nirvana
1. Is the desire to attain Nirvana a craving that must be eliminated to attain Nirvana?
2. If achieving Nirvana means being removed from the cycle of suffering, will we no longer be around to help people?
3. If we aren't here to help people after nirvana, is the want to stop suffering selfish, because it comes at a cost to others (us helping them?)
I understand that my view may not be correct because I still view self, can anyone point me in the right direction in "correcting" this view?
2. If achieving Nirvana means being removed from the cycle of suffering, will we no longer be around to help people?
3. If we aren't here to help people after nirvana, is the want to stop suffering selfish, because it comes at a cost to others (us helping them?)
I understand that my view may not be correct because I still view self, can anyone point me in the right direction in "correcting" this view?
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Comments
2. It depends on how you view rebirth, and you can't really help others without wisdom. Attaining Nibbana, you will live for the good of all until dissolution of the aggregates.
3. See #2 I suppose.
Whatever you believe, you must understand the fact that all the good you do in this life is transmitted to others, and through others, persisting into the future and affecting future life. People may not remember your name, but you will live on.
1. No.
2. Depends. If you take the Bodhisattva vow to continue to return to cyclic existence to liberate all sentient beings, then you can still be around to help people.
3. See 2.
Palzang
I'll give this a shot..
The desire to reach awakening is very useful in accumulating merit and wisdom. Which we need to reach Nirvana. The wording of reaching something is a little misleading I would think Nirvana would be just awakening from wrong thinking.
So I think you shouldn't be very hasty to try to get rid of your desire for Nirvana. Bodhicitta means awake heart-mind. One type of bodhicitta is aspirational bodhicitta which is the aspiration to become increasingly awakened so that you may benefit beings.
I don't think you should make a big project out of creating bodhicitta outside the context of an awareness practice. But if you think of meditation as making friends with your thoughts perceptions and feelings I think that freedom and friendliness towards all your 'stuff' is going to be a process where you begin to notice or manifest bodhicitta?
Some traditions of buddhism believe that the buddhas are the nature of awake mind-heart in the universe and that by stirring our heart-minds and opening to that awakening you could say the universe is helping us from the other side. So the buddhas which are that awakening can be thought to be helping. Its hard to know exactly the cosmology of it but I think it can be an encouraging thought especially if you are becoming afraid or noticing increasingly your own negative qualities (you think).
Your last question I don't think it hurts others to be free from suffering. On the contrary I think if I am suffering terribly it makes me less available to help others. I think this is a little wound up with the previous question of the notion of a buddha 'dying'. But I feel the awake heart-mind is not bound to any construct of time-space. So this nature is beyond the body. Naturally many westerners have habitual tendencies in thinking. And 'materialism' is one common viewpoint. If so I would not worry about it and instead examine your meditation experience and see how it is. See if 'materialism' is really 'how it is'. Without making a big deal out of finding an answer. Just consider the question occasionally of what is your experience and if it seems confusing (or whatever) just rest with that confusion. With time it will get better I suppose. If you experience confusion directly then even confusion is the correct experience to have in a manner of speaking.
That depends. Desire to attain enlightenment is helpful and necessary at first, but later it can become an obstacle. Ultimately there is nothing to attain, as the Heart Sutra says. It all depends what you mean by the word desire, definitely there is some wish to attain Buddhahood, but the motivation changes from a selfish one to an unselfish one.
Does desire = craving?
You see it over, and over people collecting a VAST amount of knowledge of the path, they want to get enlightened ( who doesn't?) but they will tell you themselves the problems they struggle are the same since forever. They talk the same talk, walk the same walk they did AGES ago. I believe that is when you can tell something is wrong.
If you are an engineer and you build a bridge and then you die, the bridge will still serve its purpose.
In the process you will help a lot of people.
Who signs up to make a post like that?
1. Yes but not yet.
2. No, the Buddha was still teaching after his enlightenment
3. If you are referring to the Bodhisatta's vow to reduce the mundane suffering of all sentient beings the cost is to oneself, not others.
See SN 51.15.
Samsara, literally "wandering on," is the potential for the arising of human [mental] suffering, while nirvana, literally, "extinguishing," is the cessation of that potential. The Buddha called it "the highest bliss" (Dhp 204). But we don't simply cease to exist once we attain happiness if that's what you're asking.
That's kind of a silly question. How can you show others the way to the end of suffering if you yourself don't know the way?