SuttaCentral
Personally, this is one thing that gives me more confidence in the Dhamma; that the Buddha isn’t just telling me what I want to hear, but stuff that is genuinely challenging and even upsetting at times.
It would have been so much easier just to tell people what they want to hear. It’s so much easier to speak to people’s delusions and cravings.
Other than truth, why would anyone teach such a challenging Dhamma?
I totally agree. I believe it’s not the ego that chooses Nibbana, and it certainly is not a sudden ‘jumping into’ but swimming to the other shore having only faith in all those who went before us and who spoke only positively about it. So we’re swimming across not knowing our destination, but just sick of what we’re leaving behind anyway, seeing no good in it and no happiness, peace or stability (in its’ higher sense). That’s what I think Buddha gave us, just tools to see this world as it is and to get motivated to seek the other shore based on a disgust in this one, not a knowledge of the other.
Hi dhammasamy, thanks for your inssightful comment on the ‘other shore’. I think many of us will agree it is very helpful in defining the goal and nature of their own personal practice.
It would be great to know what your think about this paper written by a person who has 19 years of experience in the movement and whose integrity, as far as I know, can’t be doubted. I think in order to avoid going off topic too much we could create a separate discussion thread or maybe discuss it in the PM.
The most important word in that whole phrase is ‘I’.
My understanding is Nibbana is primarily the end of suffering rather than disappearing from ‘existence’. In other words, the primary motivation that generates an interest in Nibbana is ending suffering or finding peace. If ‘existence’ (‘bhava’) subsequently ends, that is another result rather than the primary purpose.
For example, when Gautama left the palace, he went searching for nibbana rather than anatta. In his search for nibbana, he discovered anatta & Nibbana were interrelated.
A tree is not climbed from the top. Similarly, I have never read the Buddha taught the path begins with annihilating the ‘self’ instinct. For beginners, the Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths, which does not mention ‘non-self’ or ‘emptiness’. Instead, it mentions abandoning craving as the method.
If the ‘self’ wants a deep peace in meditation, it must eventually learn to ‘give up’ (vossagga) craving. As meditation & ‘samadhi’ (‘mental collectedness’) develop, the feelings of tranquility & rapture develop and, in those feelings and the mind’s (citta’s) contentment & collectedness, the ‘self’ thoughts might start to disappear by themselves.
At least for me, when I started practising meditation, I had only one goal, which was to find inner peace & end suffering. In my experience, significant progress did not occur until I direct my mind towards ‘giving up’ (‘vossagga’) - giving up craving, giving up judging, giving up attaching, giving up self-preoccupation.
Even if ‘ego’ has worldly relationships, such as marriage, it must learn to ‘give up’ self-centredness or selfishness to sustain those relationships.
Well said, @Deeele!
Having said that, I suspect letting go of omnipresent, ongoing social pressures to (quite literally) ‘make something of one’s self’ is no mean feat for anyone. The practice, at least here in the ‘West,’ has always felt to me a bit like swimming upstream – at times in spite of our dominant culture rather than because of it.
I don’t believe anyone said this is (or ever has been) a particularly easy path.
In our culture it is all to easy to confuse our roles with our ‘selves.’
I used to say one of the reasons that teenage years are so stressful is that teens are so preoccupied with perfecting a credible ‘act’. . . a persona which serves well to negotiate their social environment with – if not ease and grace – at least acceptance. Unfortunately, many, perhaps even most of us come to believe we are that ‘act.’
“Persona,” I’ve been told, derives from the Greek for ‘mask’ – think the Happy/Sad masks iconic of theater. As Shakespeare noted, “All the world’s a stage…” I believe he may have grasped anicca as well. Someday revisit how Prospero concludes the play-within-a-play in The Tempest; but I digress…
Before wishing to set aside any of our personal ‘masks,’ which have, after all, kept us safe for so many years, I believe @dhammasamy is quite right that one ought to have a pretty compelling reason. And, what’s more, it is not likely to arise from someone else’s good advice.
So what would cause letting go of our cherished persona(s)? That is, I think, a most excellent question.
I believe that it is likely (at least for some of us) that the necessary condition is established only by having the mind examine itself over a sustained period, quite possibly years. It would need to see for itself just how little freedom it actually has when witnessing that which it finds attractive or just how reactive it becomes in the face of that to which it is aversive.
On reflection, one may come to see how, taken to extremes, these quite normal behaviors of our egos can (and all to often do) lead to greed and hatred.
One might even argue that not to notice this is to live with ‘delusion,’ but, for me, that sounds just too harsh and judgmental (even if true). As an aside – in my estimation, few things are as damaging to one’s spiritual well-being as letting one’s ego get to be RIGHT about the t(T)ruth.
I think the best answer to dhammasamy’s most excellent question was given by a courageous nun from Saranaloka when she was asked about the many sacrifices she made when going forth, in homelessness, to live the life of a renunciate. She replied that, for her, it was simply a matter of giving up something good for something better.
I sympathize all who, like myself, still carry the burden of all these masks, whose weight can be appalling. For goodness sake’s, it seems that once you’ve created (or ‘pretended’) a persona (or self!) you’re compelled to extend it and, what’s worse, defend it. Just like trying to control other aspects of the universe, this can be quite exhausting.
Perhaps the best reason for letting go of this pretend, extend, defend dance we all go through is just the relief that comes with finally putting down a heavy burden. All in good time, though.
As a true spiritual friend (John Travis) once said to us (with a smile and a wink) the end of a Daylong Retreat, “Don’t worry, you’ll get over yourself!”
Amen.
Knowing that Nibanna is the extinction of desires, aversions and delusion is a very attractive proposition to me.
Knowing what Nibanna could then “be” is of no great interest to me as any definition would just be an opinion.
I just want to focus on the task at hand (getting rid of these three poisons) and not on the result.
To me Nibbana is the same as the five aggregate. (whether it is conditioned or unconditioned)
It is not I mine or myself.
What I understand is that the five aggregate is suffering and the Nibbana is bliss.
I don’t want to speculate about it.
Most important thing is to be happy today, by doing the right things. (experiencing momentary Nibbana)
Nibbana also a state similar to undoing a knot or being cured from a sickness.
It is difficult to explain.
This is a fridge Nibban that I saw in one of the Mandalay stores. Nibbana means getting cool towards 5 khandhas that make up persons reality.
It has no nature. It’s beyond nothingness. Nothingness is basic compared to Nirvana. Nothingness doesn’t even begin to describe Nirvana. In the 6th jhana you become omnipresent. You are everywhere simultaneously. In 7th jhana which is translated to nothingness, you extinguish your consciousness. What is left is probably your very soul. In the 8th jhana you probably extinguish your soul to get to this stage. To attain Nirvana you have to extinguish the 8th jhana which cannot be translated into a language.
