This is just pointed out to help us understand that achieving nirvana is a process. The Buddha mentioned that nirvana is impossible to describe to somebody who has not achieved awakening themselves, but also pointed toward nirvana as freedom from suffering.
This suggests we need not ponder what it feels like, but rather the way it is achieved. Freedom from suffering is the purpose of the path.
But, it is helpful to keep this in the back of our minds. Instead, we no longer create suffering in our lives.
The Buddha himself experience unpleasant things after his awakening, but did not suffer. As such, nirvana is a state of non-clinging, non-aversion, and clarity into the nature of reality. So, we know that nirvana is what we are working toward. But, how do we actually reach nirvana?
We awaken by ending suffering and the cycle of samsara. The Four Noble truths tell us that suffering is a part of our experience, there is a cause to our suffering, cessation of suffering is possible, and there is a way to end suffering.
This is really the most direct and clear teaching on ending suffering and liberating ourselves. The Noble Truths start by telling us there is suffering and a cause.
So then, how do we end suffering? We cultivate the factors on the Noble Eightfold Path and end attachment, ignorance, and aversion. They are the causes to suffering, and we must work to eliminate them.
The Buddha gave the Eightfold Path as the way we free ourselves from these. The Noble Eightfold Path is commonly broken up into three sections to better understand the path, although each factor is intimately interwoven with others. These are qualities cultivated and utilized in daily living, and encouraged through other factors on the path.
These qualities serve to create conditions conducive to awakening, and are practiced by doing things like observing the Five Precepts. By creating a community with wisdom in speaking, acting, and earning a living, people can find nirvana more easily. These qualities both help us meditate and see clearly, and help others have access to nirvana. This portion is often described as the meditation part of the path, and includes Wise Effort, Wise Mindfulness, and Wise Concentration.
This section can be broken down quite a bit, but Wise Mindfulness incorporates practice in the Four Foundations of Mindfulness , which serves to help us see the Three Marks of Existence clearly.
Wise Concentration involves cultivating a collected mind through samatha meditation. Ultimately, we much attain states of absorption known as the jhanas. Wise Effort involves cultivating wholesome seeds and qualities, and not feeding the unwholesome ones. This is done through meditation practice, noticing when qualities arise that lead us toward liberation, and when qualities arise that lead us toward suffering.
We water the seeds of awakening, and starve the seeds of suffering and samsara. This section is often presented as the final of the trio, but the first two of the eight. Consisting of Wise View and Wise Intention or Wise Resolve , these are qualities which both help us to practice and are the ultimate goal of the Eightfold Path.
Hence, the inherent instabilities of life may provide one with an insight into how they should live, which can come by practicing detachment from the world, in order to escape its vicious cycle of suffering. Furthermore, Theravada Buddhists tend to believe that Nirvana, by being the dissolution of all the qualities one possesses in this life, is easier to achieve upon or after death.
Finally, since there is believed to be an inherent instability within all that exists, one should practice being an impartial spectator towards life, because with this attitude, one can in turn, come to a state of being that is unmarked by the impure effects of this world, or Nirvana. On the other hand, the Mahayana tradition of Buddhist thought believes that those who sincerely seek liberation and spiritual awakening can follow the path towards Nirvana with greater ease than those who choose to remain in ignorance.
In order to reach Nirvana, Mahayana Buddhists believe that one should imitate the life of the Buddha, and in turn, attempt to become a bodhisattva , or one who is in the process of attaining enlightenment as the Buddha did during his lifetime. Mahayana Buddhists believe Nirvana lies in imitating the life of the Buddha. As one more fully realizes the ideals of selflessness, self-sufficiency, and detachment, treading the path toward Nirvana in the here and now becomes gradually easier.
I believe this is due to the Mahayana view that Nirvana is an all-encompassing domain that all beings reside within, and therefore, by being self-sufficient, yet selfless, as well as detached, yet altruistic, one is truly imitating the totality of all things that make up Nirvana, or following what is called the Middle Path.
Yet, this cannot be equated to the Theravada belief in the diligent practice of temperance. While the Theravada school supports the practice of temperance so that one can detach from the world, the Mahayana tradition believes that moderation imitates the impartial nature of the Buddha, or the preeminent one who has achieved Nirvana, which in turn can help others attain spiritual emancipation.
To Mahayana Buddhists, Nirvana is not only a state of spiritual flawlessness, but also the reality that all sentient beings are a part of. Furthermore, to Mahayana Buddhists, Nirvana is a state of spiritual perfection in which one realizes that there is nothing outside of Nirvana, and that it is the highest degree of reality one can enter into. Consequently, the Mahayana Buddhists believe that this can lead one to be disenchanted with Nirvana, which is problematic because feelings of dissatisfaction are contrary to that state of contentment.
Hence, this paradox leads the Mahayana, unlike their Theravada brethren, to recommend that those who are in Nirvana assist those who have not yet reached it. The Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna believed that Nirvana was beyond logic. To him, the closest one can come to describing this level of reality is to understand that it derives from neither existence nor non-existence.
Hence, by being an exception to the interactions between being and non-being, Nagarjuna is left to conclude that Nirvana is the all-encompassing totality of reality that all sentient beings reside within.
Furthermore, Nagarjuna states that because there is really no definition that is adequate to describe Nirvana, one should discard it from thought so that it does not become a source of vexation. One may infer, as a result, that to Theravada Buddhists one should try to escape the painful predicament of this life, through only self-denial, which I believe the Buddha, Nagarjuna, and the Mahayana Tradition would not identify with.
Ultimately, Nirvana facilitates desire, and since desire derives from Nirvana, there is something good in it, insofar as it can help one to learn valuable life lessons. Nagarjuna, who claims that the universe is dynamic and not subject to the laws of origination or annihilation, may rightfully be understood as supporting a similar claim that was made by the Buddha in The Parable of the Mustard Seed. According to the Buddha, one must accept that Nirvana is at times a painful condition, which all people are a part of, and that by helping others from a place of genuine compassion can, in turn, help them to realize the preexisiting state of Nirvana.
Finally, this too diverges from the Theravada belief that one must achieve Nirvana instead of growing into it as a state of being. Burtt, E. Astore, R. Astore, Rocco A. The newsletter highlights recent selections from the journal and useful tips from our blog. Inquiries Journal provides undergraduate and graduate students around the world a platform for the wide dissemination of academic work over a range of core disciplines. Representing the work of students from hundreds of institutions around the globe, Inquiries Journal 's large database of academic articles is completely free.
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Forgot password? Reset your password ». By Rocco A. Buddhist enlightenment has something in common with Enlightenment in the Western scientific sense. That said, undergirding this experiential understanding, and often accompanying it, is the more abstract understanding that is part of Buddhist philosophy. Making real progress in mindfulness meditation almost inevitably means becoming more aware of the mechanics by which your feelings, if left to their own devices, shape your perceptions, thoughts and behaviour — and becoming more aware of the things in your environment that activate those feelings in the first place.
You could say that enlightenment in the Buddhist sense has something in common with Enlightenment in the Western scientific sense: it involves becoming more aware of what causes what. All of this flies in the face of stereotype.
Mindfulness meditation is often thought of as warm and fuzzy and, in a way, anti-rational. And, yes, it does involve those things. It can let you experience your feelings — anger, love, sorrow, joy — with new sensitivity, seeing their texture, even feeling their texture, as never before. And the reason this is possible is that you are, in a sense, not making judgments — that is, you are not mindlessly labelling your feelings as bad or good, not fleeing from them or rushing to embrace them.
So you can stay close to them yet not be lost in them; you can pay attention to what they actually feel like. Still, you do this not in order to abandon your rational faculties but rather to engage them: you can now subject your feelings to a kind of reasoned analysis that will let you judiciously decide which ones are good guiding lights.
And all of this means informing your responses to the world with the clearest possible view of the world. Underlying this whole endeavour is a highly mechanistic conception of how the mind works. The idea is to finely sense the workings of the machine and use that understanding to rewire it, to subvert its programming, to radically alter its response to the causes, the conditions, impinging on it.
But they still fly. This Essay was made possible through the support of a grant from the Templeton Religion Trust to Aeon. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Templeton Religion Trust. Funders to Aeon Magazine are not involved in editorial decision-making, including commissioning or content-approval.
Modern biomedicine sees the body as a closed mechanistic system. But illness shows us to be permeable, ecological beings. Nitin K Ahuja. Thinkers and theories. Some see Plato as a pure rationalist, others as a fantastical mythmaker. His deft use of stories tells a more complex tale. Tae-Yeoun Keum. All the stories we have are flawed. What makes something worth believing? Animals and humans. If humans were to disappear from the face of the Earth, what might dogs become? And would they be better off without us?
Jessica Pierce. Human evolution. It might be the core of what human brains evolved to do. Philip Ball. What is nirvana? Here is how Bhikkhu Bodhi, an American Buddhist monk who has translated reams of ancient Buddhist texts into English, put it in a series of lectures he recorded in It is here in this space between feeling and craving that the battle will be fought which will determine whether bondage will continue indefinitely into the future or whether it will be replaced by enlightenment and liberation.
For if instead of yielding to craving, to the driving thirst for pleasure, if a person contemplates with mindfulness and awareness the nature of feelings and understands these feelings as they are, then that person can prevent craving from crystallising and solidifying.
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