Nirvana: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

The following article is about the term Nirvana in the context of Buddhism. See Nirvana (disambiguation) for other meanings.

In Buddhism, nirvāṇa (from the Sanskrit -- Pali: Nibbāna -- Chinese: Nie4 Pan2 (涅槃)), literally "extinction" or "extinguishing", is the culmination of the Buddhist pursuit of liberation. Siddartha Gautama, the Buddha, described Buddhism as a raft which, after floating across a river, will enable the passenger to reach nirvana. Hinduism also uses nirvana as a synonym to its ideas of moksha, and it is spoken of in several Hindu tantric texts as well as the Bhagavad Gita.

Etymology

Etymologically, nirvana connotes an extinguishing or "blowing out" of a fire or candle flame, and in the Buddhist context carries the further connotations of stilling, cooling, and peace. In nirvana, all greed, aversion, delusion, ignorance, craving and ego-centered consciousness are extinguished.

In Indian physics during the time of Gautama Buddha, when a fire was extinguished it went into a state of latency. Rather than ceasing to exist, it became dormant and unbound from any particular fuel, it became diffused throughout the cosmos. When the Buddha used the image to explain nibbana to the Indian Brahmins of his day, he bypassed the question of whether an extinguished fire continues to exist or not, and focused instead on the impossibility of defining a fire that doesn't burn: thus his statement that the person who has gone totally "out" can't be described.

As a negation of saṁsāra (i.e., the whole phenomenal world), nirvana is impossible to define directly; it can only be experienced or realized. One may not even be able to say this, since saying this implies the existence of an experiencing subject--which in fact would not persist after full Template:Nirvana . While some of the side-effects of nirvana can be identified, a definition of Template:Nirvana can only be approximated by what it is not. It is not the clinging existence with which man is understood to be afflicted. It is not any sort of becoming. It has no origin or end. It is not made or fabricated. It has no dualities, so that it cannot be described in words. It has no parts that may be distinguished one from another. It is not a subjective state of consciousness. It is not conditioned on or by anything else.

Calling "nirvana" the opposite of samsara may not be doctrinally accurate since even in early Buddhism and by the time of Nāgārjuna , there are teachings of the identity of nirvana and samsara. However, even here it is assumed that the natural man suffers from at the very least a confusion regarding the nature of samsara.

We can also say that, given the vital importance of the idea of anatta (Pā li; Sanskrit: Anā tman), which negates not merely the grasping mind but also any concept of essential substance or permanent self, it is clear that nirvā na is not to be understood as a union with monistic ideal. Since there is essentially no self and no not-self, there is nothing to unite, instead it is an experience of non-separation.

It should also be noted that the Buddha discouraged certain lines of speculation, including speculation into the state of an enlightened being after death, on the grounds that these were not useful for pursuing enlightenment; thus definitions of nirvāṇa might be said to be doctrinally unimportant.

• Gautama:
  • "Where there is nothing; where naught is grasped, there is the Isle of No-Beyond. Nirvana do I call it -- the utter extinction of aging and dying."
  • "There is, monks, an unborn -- unbecome -- unmade -- unfabricated. If there were not that unborn -- unbecome -- unmade -- unfabricated, there would not be the case that emancipation from the born -- become -- made -- fabricated would be discerned. But precisely because there is an unborn -- unbecome -- unmade -- unfabricated, emancipation from the born -- become -- made -- fabricated is discerned." [Udana VIII.3]

• Sutta Nipāta, tr. Rune Johansson:
  • accī yathā vātavegena khitto
    atthaṁ paleti na upeti sankhaṁ
    evaṁ muni nāmakāyā kimutto
    atthaṁ paleti na upeti sankhaṁ
  • atthan gatassa na pamāṇam atthi
    ynea naṁ vajju taṁ tassan atthi
    sabbesu dhammesu samūhatesu
    samūhatā vādapathāpi sabbe
    
    Like a flame that has been blown out by a strong wind goes to rest and cannot be defined, just so the sage who is freed from name and body goes to rest and cannot be defined.
    For him who has gone to rest there is no measure by means of which one could describe him; that is not for him. When all (dharmas) have gone, all signs of recognition have also gone.

• Jon Kabit-Zin, Wherever You Go, There You Are