What is Nirvana?- Dr. Susunaga Weeraperuma

The attainment of nirvana or spiritual liberation is the religious aspiration of every Buddhist. It is the summum bonum, the highest or chief good.

Since desirelessness or freedom from all attachments is one of the principal characteristics of this exalted state of nirvana, one can raise a philosophical objection at the very outset of our inquiry: Does it not seem contradictory to desire the state of desirelessness? Don’t Buddhists look rather absurd when they start craving for that dimension of being wherein there is no craving whatsoever? Through the instrumentality of the conditioned mind will it ever be possible to attain the unconditioned? The problem is compounded because the very statement ‘conditioned mind’ emanates from the mind’s own conditioned state. Expressed differently, the question is: Will the mind, given its self-centered mess, ever be a party to throw off once and for all its own karma? Questions of this kind are difficult, if not impossible, to answer, especially because the spiritual dimension of nirvana is not comprehensible to the intellect with all its prejudices, predispositions and the like. Similarly, questions relating to the infinite distances of space, the nature of time or timeless eternity, are beyond the capacity of the mind. Nevertheless, we can at least make guesses about nirvana, useless though it is in a sense, for surely there is no substitute for actually experiencing Illumination oneself. It is foolish on our part to discuss the subject. For, strictly speaking, only the Buddhas and arhats are qualified to talk about nirvana.

The Sanskrit word ‘nirvana’ literally means ‘blown out’, ‘extinguished’ (as a fire or a lamp), ‘set as the sun’, ‘calmed’, ‘quieted’, ‘tamed’, ‘dead’, ‘deceased’, ‘lost’, ‘disappeared’, ‘immersed’, ‘plunged’ and ‘immovable’. The Pali word ‘nibbana’ has the following meanings: ‘freedom from desire’, ‘cooling’, ‘emancipation’ and ‘the final bliss’. All these terms are worthy of consideration as they help to convey something of the flavor of nirvana.

Often in Buddhist literature the nirvanic state is only indirectly indicated. There are numerous fascinating allusions to nirvana. Such information is only helpful for us to think of nirvana in abstract terms. Is it really possible to describe the indescribable? The safer course is to state what nirvana is not than what it actually is.

Samsaric servitude entails entanglement in the sorrowful cycle of births and deaths. Sorrow is inseparable from life. Suffering is our lot. Who can escape from the clutches of suffering? There is suffering both at birth and death. It is symbolically significant that babies cry when leaving the womb and entering this so-called wonderful world. Separation from loved ones causes suffering; association with unpleasant persons results in suffering; without some suffering it is not possible to pass an examination, but failing in an examination also creates suffering; those who have to join the ranks of the unemployed have to suffer, but there is suffering even in the process of finding a job and earning one’s living thereafter; the physical and mental discomforts of the sick and the dying are forms of suffering; our brief respites from suffering are termed ‘happiness’, but such periods, alas, are shortlived. The attainment of nirvana is immediately followed by the cessation of suffering. Let us therefore cross the karmic stream of becoming. On the opposite bank of the stream one can find the karma-free celestial state of being. The few who succeed in getting there know neither birth nor death.

References

The following books have been referred to in the course of preparation of this article:

Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines, by Nyanatiloka. The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Samyutta Nikaya, by Bhikku Bodhi. Anguttara Nikaya: Numerical Discourses of the Buddha; selected and translated from the Pali by Nyanaponika Thera and Bhikku Bodhi. The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Majjhima Nikaya, by Bhikku Nanamoli and Bhikku Bodhi. The Buddha and His Teachings, by Narada Maha Thera. What the Buddha Taught, by Walpola Sri Rahula. The Debate of King Milinda...edited by Bhikku Pesala. The Questions of King Milinda, translated by T W Rhys Davids.

1. Samyutta Nikaya, 38:1.
2. Anguttara Nikaya, 3:55.
3. Majjhima Nikaya, 147.

© "The Mountain Path" (Jayanti issue January, 2001) published by Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai 606 603, South India. Website: www.ramana-maharshi.org. Reprinted with permission.

<< Back