Nirvana - Deja Vu all over Again

Ultimate wisdom is achieved when entering nirvana, the only unconditioned state. There are three main traditional “doors” to it: the realisation of the all-encompassing unsatisfactoriness of all of samsara, realisation of existence but impermanence of all in samsara and realisation that non-self-being is all there is in samsara. One can realise any of the three first depending upon one’s personality and chance but realising one immediately leads to realisation of the other two. A thus enlightened person is then called an Arya (noble person) as opposed to a Prthagjana (regular ‘Jo/e’). In different contexts, Sangha can mean all Buddhists, all monks and nuns or all of the Arya only.

It’s not possible to be understood with the intellect and must be approached from nearby before it can be ‘seen’. There simply is no remaining craving left to ‘seed’ a rebirth. Buddhas can see ‘their’ past lives which appears strange considering Buddhists believe in rebirth rather than reincarnation. The unconditioned obviously has a relationship with the conditioned but it’s not clear how the unconditioned conditions the conditioned; the conditioned certainly can’t condition the unconditioned. The unconditioned state is achieved by ‘drawing or turning away’ from the conditioned (or perhaps letting go of it). It is ineffable (too subtle for description) but as far from nothingness as one can get, apparently. It is between something and nothing, though. It is more than a mere ending but it certainly is an ending (of something). It is also both never-ending and instantaneous and is not worldly bliss. Its realisation is beyond both positive and negative emotions, it is simply realisation. It is ultimate, sublime, some kind of never-ending bliss. There is no ‘soul’ that obtains it; that could not be Buddhism. Nevertheless, ‘Siddhartha’ lived with it for many years before his parinibbana.

It appears that Arahanthood and nirvana are most likely possible mainly during the earthly life of and in the presence of a Buddha so we’ll probably have to wait until Maitreya arrives in about 8,000 years for our next best chance. There were around 50 Arahants getting around when Siddhartha achieved his parinibbana. Essentially the Arahant is the most senior of the most senior Buddhist ranks of enlightenment short of Buddhahood. The title means "one who has achieved nibbana/nirvana but has not become a Buddha”. Around 24 Buddhas are accepted as having lived before Siddhartha. In the Mahayana view, Siddhartha and other Buddhas are also held to be still working for us in some way as in the light of that view a Mahayana Buddhist would not believe that they are so selfish as to have simply freed themselves only. All must be continually prompted to follow them to nirvana. Buddhas all have to do this. So this also applies to the other 24 earlier Buddhas (it probably even applies to future Buddhas that are now Bodhisattvas).

There you have all I know about nirvana.

The Third Noble Truth (Nirvana – the Cessation of Dukkha)

Nirvana is extremely difficult to define but here goes! It is the experience of the cessation of unsatisfactoriness. Was that too easy? Well, you may be right. It is achieved during the lifetime of a person very rarely. When that person dies s/he may or may not achieve parinirvana which means an end to samsara and rebirths. Parinirvana is the final death of a Buddha (such a one will not be reborn in any conventional form).

It is not annihilation, however, despite what Schopenhauer claimed. Weber also thought that Buddhism was a selfish seeking of annihilation. Siddhartha said that he taught nirvana. Buddhists see it as like the blowing out of a candle (the flame thought to be being extinguished is not representative of existence but reflects the impairment only the causes of unsatisfactoriness; nothing is truly extinguished in achieving nirvana just as the flame merely takes another form of existence).

Awareness of the truth is at the heart of this as the prime cause of suffering is delusion concerning the truth of existence. Awareness in itself is effectively becoming unconditioned (asamskrta). This awareness unleashes the purest of freedoms, not any excursion to any heavenly place or time.

Nirvana may be some supreme level of bliss or joy. Early texts generally say that it exists but it isn’t possible to tell in what sense. It is apparently not an event but a continual and realisable reality of experience. A Buddhist is permitted to aspire (chandas) to it but not to crave (trsna) it, as craving is a desire and nirvana is all about the absence of desire. That’s probably as clear as mud and that’s possibly as it should be. Nirvana is not easy. I'll next get into how Buddhists say we can eventually get there.

The First Noble Truth (Dukkha – suffering or unsatisfactoriness)

The idea is that the cosmos we know of (as unenlightened beings) is in conditioned existence (samsara) (i.e. things follow from other things) and that this is unsatisfactory (dukkha is our very state of existence, then).

There are three categories. The first is dukkha dukkha and this means the clearly unsatisfactory things such as direct suffering, pain, trauma, loads, psychological distress and loss/bereavement. The second form is the unsatisfactoriness of the reality that we know the happinesses we may be feeling now will surely end in old age or death (viparinama (change) dukkha). Siddhartha is asking for people to consider how their lives are unsatisfactory in the here and now (are we in pain now or do we fear the pain of loss of our happiness in the future?) The third form of unsatisfactoriness is the very fact that those states we feel - good or bad - are not our independent states, they are conditioned because we are living in a conditioned world (samkhara (conditioned existence) dukkha (samskara duhkka in Pali)). Siddhartha wants followers to examine whether this conditioned state is real or must be real for all time. He also asks them to ask if any of these three states is satisfactory. It’s fairly clear that if they are our reality that our reality is not ideal.

Is knowing this, then, the beginning of the way to reach for the ideal reality that is possible? The idea is that pondering this in itself in depth is useful to us if we seek enlightenment. This is really a pondering of whether we have agency to make our own reality or not. The answer of course is too subtle for us to simply know without in-depth pondering (and pondering over many lifetimes may be required before we can know the answer). The Buddhist argues both that 'we' are dependent by nature and that imagining otherwise is an illusion that we need to try to know as the illusion it is but that knowing this is part of finding a way out of this major chain of dukkha states we call our lives.

There are within this dukkha (samsara) reality held to be five or six realms plus some meditation level realms and we’ve now entered into the metaphysics/ontology of abhidharma. Tibetan Buddhists especially have created wheels of existence that depict the realms for the benefit of the unlettered. One actually shows 31 realms because there are various sub-realms all of which humans might potentially experience in some sense in their lifetimes so human mind experiences in some sense reflect Buddhist cosmology.

The five realms that we can say Buddhists accept as at least real in some sense according to the abhidharma are the Hell realm (niraya), the Animal realm (tiracchanaroni – especially difficult to get out of), the Ghostly realm (pettivisaya – the ghosts may or may not be hungry and/or thirsty ghosts), the Human realm (mantissa) and the realm of the Gods. Some wheels depict a further realm of Titans (a demi-god (Asura) realm). Within the actual God (deva and Brahma) realms some hold that there are six lower God sub-realms and sixteen higher God sub-realms.

I’ve mentioned that only humans, egotistical though they are said to be, are able to escape to nirvana because only they are able to see both what is and what can be but is not now and four of the possible realms are realms regarded as higher than the higher God realms that can only be reached by human meditation (called formless dhyana/Samadhi/Zen) - levels five to eight of meditation - the highest of them is on the edge of nirvana but still a realm of existence and the four lower so-called pure form levels of meditation one to four permit communion with various higher gods). Humans can also arguably be reborn in these highest four realms (five to eight) as a result of having reached them in an earlier life by meditation.