What IS Nibbana, exactly?

The rūpa I call my body isn’t an abstraction. Clearly it’s anatta, but it is much more of an event than an idea.

Oxford Dictionary definition of “abstraction”

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Obviously there are examples for all the categories mentioned above. The Buddha wasn’t into word games and IMO there isn’t any abstract philosophy in EBTs (Core texts) at all. If he stated something, he actually experienced it.

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I really agree with this point. :sunglasses:

One major problem with the Pali translations into English is a systemic failure to translate the word “nibbana” into either ‘extinguishment’ or ‘quenching’ and instead leaving it untranslated and often capitalizing it. Makes the word have a more esoteric or mystical quality that surely wasn’t intended. Nibbana/nirvana was a super commonly understood verbiage.

Buddha Gotama was direct in his speech, often subtle, but never overly opaque and this is seen in the suttas.

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The categories may be abstract, but I think they do point to particular aspects of our experience. These categories represent the Buddhist model of human experience, though there are others. IMO they are not things to be believed in or grasped at, but a framework for exploration.

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:heart::heart::heart:

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I would say that they point to discreet stretches (shortlasting) of experience.

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My pleasure! I’m so very happy it found a good home :slightly_smiling_face:

For posterity’s sake, I interject here merely to drop in a link to the material I’ve collected on Nibbāna on the chance it may be useful to some future student :blush:

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A good but long exposition is given here as to what Nibbana is.

My understanding is that Nibbana ( or liberation ) is an experience that one gets when defilements ( mind states of craving and ignorance) are removed . What one sees or defines as a defilement is relative to where you are in the path. ( The very dhamma that carries you could become your own defilement - it is only insight and wisdom that will tell you this. ) Through practice and with insight the restless mind activity ( i.e thoughts / cognition / vinanna or what one would generally call higher order brain activity) comes to a halt. This is the cessation of Vinnana / Consciousness. ( It is not the same as being unconscious which most people tend to assume if you are not versed in the terminology. ) It is a state where you are fully alive , but no cognition , but have just bare experience.

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The progression for attaining liberation/nibbāna experience is described in SN/SA in the following series of five stages (Choong Mun-keat, The Fundamental Teachings of Early Buddhism, p. 53):

  1. passati, sammā-passaṃ, sammādiṭṭhi (i.e. seeing the five aggregates/six sense spheres as anicca, dukkha, anatta)
  2. nibbidā (disgust with the five aggregates/six sense spheres)
  3. nandirāgakkhaya, virāga (destruction of delight and desire, fading away of desire)
  4. vimutti (vimuccati, suvimutta), nirodha, ceto-vimutti, paññā-vimutti (i.e. liberation, cessation)
  5. vimutti-ñāṇa (knowledge of liberation)
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Why not ask the Buddha himself about the purpose of his teaching? Nirvana is the cessation of that very craving tanha (leading to a new existence - bhava). This is the simplest and most accurate description of nirvana. Everything else is poetry. That is, nirvana is the cessation of the cause of existence (of aggregates). Or, in short, cessation of existence (bhava nirodho) is nirvana.

In meditation one can achieve a state of dispassion; states of empty awareness without “I” and “Mine”; contemplation of the cessation of all objects of the six spheres. And finally, the cessation of any consciousness in nirodha-samapati. These various meditative states reveal different aspects of nirvana as a phenomenon.

As I understand it, you are saying that in this state both objects and all awareness cease. Often this state of unconsciousness is mistaken for the path and fruition in the dry vipassana tradition. Some teachers sharply criticize attempts to accept this state as a path and a fruit. For example, the Venerable Pa Auk Sayadaw considers this state to be like falling into bhavanga due to insufficiently developed samadhi. It is believed in the tradition that moments of fruition consciousness can arise one after another for many hours perceiving the dhamma of the cessation of all phenomena. What do you think of it?

Indeed, the definition of nirvana as unborn does not make sense in this interpretation. Birth and death are clearly defined by the Buddha as the arising and disintegration of the aggregates of a living being at the beginning and end of a particular life, especially the arising and disintegration of the body. There are four types of birth: spontaneous, from the womb, from an egg, and from moisture. In relation to dhammas or qualities, other words are used: arising and ceasing.
The prefix a- is negation. That is, nibbana is the absence of birth, aging, sickness and death. And not the unborn, ageless, unsick, undying dhamma (which sounds like utter nonsense. how can a dhamma not get sick or get sick?) The term “unconditioned” has the same meaning - the absence of arising, changing and ceasing, or any dependent arising. This is salvation or freedom from all these things.

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