Is nibana a kind of death?

music · April 2013

Life is full of dukha, so the ending of dukha would entail the ending of life as we know it. So is nibana the big sleep, a kind of death? Is that why it's called extinction?

black_tea · April 2013

I don't think it would be akin to sleep -- or at least I don't get the impression that that is how it was considered. It would be an ending of delusions, attachments, cravings etc. Nirvana isn't nothingness, which I think is what you are implying? Though I may be misunderstanding what you are getting at?

nenkohai · April 2013

you mean, we need to "wake up" to "go to sleep?"

taiyaki · April 2013

Metaphorically it is the end of the world.

But nirvana is just the cessation of ignorance, greed, and aversion.

But ignorance is replaced by wisdom. Greed with generosity. And aversion with love and compassion.

The five skandhas when conceived as existent, non-existent, both or neither become samsara. When the five skandhas are apprehended as emptiness and not conceived of as anything then the five skandhas are wisdom.

Now this non-dualistic vision of Buddhism is definitely a Mahayana slant.

If Buddhism is viewed dualistically then Nirvana has nothing to do with Samsara. It is independent from this world. Freedom from freedom and non-freedom as the deathless. So its freedom from death and life.

Sabre · April 2013

Ajahn Chah said we have to die before we die. Then there is the is realizing there is no such thing as dying, because there was nothing to die in the first place. There are only processes that can come to an end.

genkaku · April 2013

Buddhism is not threat-based. There is no subtext saying that you have to drop dead in order to get to heaven. If heaven were some place else, that would not be Buddhism.

Buddhism does suggest that if you stop trying to change things, things are changed forever ... even death.

how · April 2013

Every moment is a birth/ life & ending of life as we know it.
Identity is just the sleeper dreaming that it's not..
The big sleep/a kind of death/& extinction
is just someones nightmare of waking up.

lobster · April 2013

Life is full of dukha, so the ending of dukha would entail the ending of life as we know it.

In your case would that be welcome?

So is nibana the big sleep, a kind of death?

Death
and 'born again'

Born again, awake.
Clinging to misery extinguished or less of a habit . . .

pegembara · April 2013

music said:
Life is full of dukha, so the ending of dukha would entail the ending of life as we know it. So is nibana the big sleep, a kind of death? Is that why it's called extinction?

Nibbana is the extinction of greed, hatred and delusion. The great delusion is that we exist.

The way people think is that having been born, they don't want to die. Is that correct? It's like pouring water into a glass but not wanting it to fill up. If you keep pouring the water, you can't expect it not to be full. But people think like this: they are born but don't want to die. Is that correct thinking? Consider it. If people are born but never die, will that bring happiness? If no one who comes into the world dies, things will be a lot worse. If no one ever dies, we will probably all end up eating excrement! Where would we all stay? It's like pouring water into the glass without ceasing yet still not wanting it to be full. We really ought to think things through. We are born but don't want to die. If we really don't want to die, we should realize the deathless (amatadhamma), as the Buddha taught. Do you know what amatadhamma means?

It is the deathless - though you die, if you have wisdom it is as if you don't die. Not dying, not being born. That's where things can be finished. Being born and wishing for happiness and enjoyment without dying is not the correct way at all. But that's what people want, so there is no end of suffering for them. The practitioner of Dhamma does not suffer. Well, practitioners such as ordinary monks still suffer, because they haven't yet fulfilled the path of practice. They haven't realized amatadhamma, so they still suffer. They are still subject to death.

Amatadhamma is the deathless. Born of the womb, can we avoid death? Apart from realizing that there is no real self, there is no way to avoid death. ''I'' don't die; sankhāras undergo transformation, following their nature.

Ajahn Chah http://www.ajahnchah.org/book/Even_One_Word_Is.php

I think that the discovery that we do not die is the most valuable and important discovery made in the history of the human race. Is there any other discovery that can match it? Even to call it the most valuable and important world heritage is insufficient. However, unfortunately, most of the great number of people living in the world do not know of this great discovery. Whenever the New Year comes people think they have grown a year older and a year closer to death. But this is a big mistake. Where is that which has grown a year older, where is that which has made another step toward death? Shakyamuni pursued this question relentlessly. And he realized that this thing called the “self” had neither shadow nor form nor color nor smell nor weight nor anything at all. He realized that this “self” was no more than an image that human beings had arbitrarily produced in their heads. If “self” and “person” are no more than concepts, then “the death of a person” is no more than a concept formed from the workings of the mind. One speaks of “dying” but the “one” dying does not exist. To put it clearly, from the start “death” itself does not exist.

Yamada Ryoun- abbot of Sanbo-Kyodan http://www.sanbo-zen.org/artikel-2_d.html

'Open are the doors to the
Deathless
to those with ears.
Let them show their conviction.
Perceiving trouble, O Brahma,
I did not tell people
the refined,
sublime Dhamma.'

Ariyapariyesana Sutta MN26

misecmisc1 · April 2013

nibana (or nirvana) is the cessation of all conditions.

Jason · April 2013

music said:
Life is full of dukha, so the ending of dukha would entail the ending of life as we know it. So is nibana the big sleep, a kind of death? Is that why it's called extinction?

Nibbana is the extinction of craving (tahna) (AN 10.60); and the extinguishing of greed, hatred, and delusion (SN 38.1). If anything, I'd say it's the death of our false self, the one born of ignorance and the defilements of greed, hatred, and delusion. Coincidentally, I was reading a book today called In the Spirit of Happiness by the monks of New Skete, an orthodox monastic community in Cambridge, New York, and in discussing the real meaning of asceticism and some of the more 'negative' sounding passages in the New Testament like Mark 8:34-35 and John 12:24-25, they mention that:

"Dying to self" is spiritual shorthand for rooting out all manner of exaggerated self-interest, characteristics of ourselves that constrict us in narcissism and blind self-centeredness. This is the self within us that, while all too real, is what nonetheless must due, the "false self," which must gives way to the new life we are called to attain. The false self embodies the very characteristics we loathe in our better moments. Were we to look at ourselves honestly, we would see how petty, thoughtless, and loveless we can be at any given moment. We might have an occasional, fleeting insight that we will never attain any real happiness unless we come to terms with what really counts in life. One doesn't have to search far to find pathetic examples of individuals who struck it rich by the standards of "the world," yet whose personal lives were utterly miserable. (86)

Personally, I think it's an apt description, albeit in Christian terminology. I'd say that what 'dies' during awakening and is a self built on, or influenced by, ignorance and the defilements; and what's left is a mind that's liberated, unbound, freed from grasping and self-centeredness, and expressive of love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. Nibbana, then, isn't a kind of death akin to nothingness as I think many mistakenly believe it to be based upon the numerous 'negative' references as to what it's not; it's the experience of the fullness of life free from the suffering that arise from clinging.

ThailandTom · April 2013

Here is my opinion @music, some of it my have already been said and you or others may not agree. The end of suffering would mean you would still be alive as a human being and look pretty much the same on the outside, on the inside however things would be very different indeed. I am sure even if you did a before brain scan and an after one on a monk after 20 years of practice there would be some changes, brain plasticity.

You will experience sickness, aging and death in some way shape of form, but you do not have to suffer mentally because of it. Once you have clarity, full awakening things become truly apparent. Once you stop grasping at desires and clinging to selfhood totally within objects and people, you then can liberate yourself.

music · April 2013

I think I should have clarified earlier on. I am talking about pari nibanna, the one that comes after death. I am not talking about mere enlightenment or equanimity - I am referring to the state or condition (or whatever word you use, please let's not quibble over this) that exists once the final nibanna is attained. Since it is not the waking state, the only reference point we have is sleep.

ThailandTom · April 2013

The final nibanna could happen to me or you right now if you had some serious insight, that is the fruit of the path, liberation. When we die, we do not know what happens, it is all speculation so IMO it is better left alone. That is not nirvana.

ThailandTom · April 2013

Or do you mean like the devas and all that stuff? That is all again speculation and who knows.. One who is liberated is so said meant to see karma in all its workings and can transcend the form realm. Again, I do not know, all I know is that it is productive it work in the now and such thoughts are pretty pointless.

footiam · April 2013

music said:
Life is full of dukha, so the ending of dukha would entail the ending of life as we know it. So is nibana the big sleep, a kind of death? Is that why it's called extinction?

Death probably involves the material body. Nirvana probably is not. Sleep is sleep. You'd get to be awake after you sleep but you would not get up after death. They should all be different things. at least these death and sleep thing. Nirvana, I am not so sure because I have yet to attain.

misecmisc1 · April 2013

My theoretical understanding of Buddha's teachings says : at nibbana, all conditions get ceased - but as per law of karma, the body may continue even after nibbana and finally when the body dies at death of body, it is pari-nibbana - which is like the extinction of the fuel leading to extinguishing of fire - like a candle flame getting extinguished after the candle is burnt completely.

Jason · April 2013

music said:
Since it is not the waking state, the only reference point we have is sleep.

I think that's debatable. Some, for example, would say that the awareness of nibbana is an awareness that's not harmed by death. Others, of course, would say that nibbana post death is the final cessation of consciousness, although to speak in terms of death from this point of view is misleading since all forms of self-identity have been removed and there's effectively nothing to 'die.' (You may also want to review this thread you started for a similar discussion about nibbana and what it possibly is or isn't.)

ThailandTom · April 2013

Yes the death of the body results in the conditions that came together to form it return back to fire, earth, water and wind. The mind or consciousness, the thing we know very little about in modern day science goes where? Who knows and to be honest I am not too bothered. Like I have said before, if you do your best in the now and generate positive karma in the now, then reincarnation or w/e will just be a bonus...

^.^

pegembara · April 2013

Final nibbana aka nibbana without remainder is when the dissolution of the body takes place in an arahant.

Whatever's compounded,
wherever a state of becoming's obtained,
all that has no one in charge:
so says the Great Seer.
Whoever discerns this,
as taught by the Awakened One,
would no more grasp hold of any state of becoming
than he would a hot iron ball.
I have no 'I was,'
no 'I will be.'
Fabrications will simply go out of existence.
What's to lament there in that?
For one who sees, as it actually is,
the pure arising of phenomena,
the pure seriality of fabrications,
there's no fear.
When seeing the world with discernment
as on a par with grass & twigs,
finding no 'mine-ness,'
thinking, 'There's nothing of mine,'
he feels no sorrow.
Dissatisfied with this carcass,
I'm unconcerned with becoming.
This body will break up
and there will not be another.
Do as you like with this carcass.
From that I will feel
neither hatred nor love.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/thag/thag.16.01.than.html

Sabre · April 2013

When a movie ends, does it die? Is anybody in the cinema crying because the movie is over? They seem to be silly questions, but in fact we are just like movies. When a movie ends, it just ends. It's silly to speak about death here. When an enlightened being dies, he or she doesn't die really, he or she just ends.

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