Nirvana (Buddhism)

Nirvana (निर्वाण, Sanskrit: '; Pali: ', ) is the goal of the Buddhist path.

Most Buddhist traditions share the goal of overcoming suffering and the cycle of death and rebirth, either by the attainment of Nirvana or through the path of Buddhahood.

Nirvana is the ultimate spiritual goal in Buddhism and marks the soteriological release from rebirths in saṃsāra.

Samsara ends if a person attains nirvana, the "blowing out" of the desires and the gaining of true insight into impermanence and non-self reality.

Nirvana is part of the Third Truth on "cessation of dukkha" in the Four Noble Truths, and the summum bonum destination of the Noble Eightfold Path.

There is a way to end this cycle, namely by attaining nirvana, cessation of craving, whereafter rebirth and the accompanying dukkha will no longer arise again.

Buddhist scholastic tradition identifies two types of nirvana: sopadhishesa-nirvana (nirvana with a remainder), and parinirvana or anupadhishesa-nirvana (nirvana without remainder, or final nirvana).

In Buddhism, parinirvana (Sanskrit: '; Pali: ') is commonly used to refer to nirvana-after-death, which occurs upon the death of someone who has attained nirvana during his or her lifetime.

In the Mahayana tradition, the highest goal is Buddhahood, in which there is no abiding in Nirvana.

In one instance the term buddha is also used in Theravada to refer to all who attain Nirvana, using the term Sāvakabuddha to designate an arhat, someone who depends on the teachings of a Buddha to attain Nirvana.

Collins notes that the first type, nirvana in this life is also called bodhi (awakening), nirvana of the defilements or kilesa-(pari)nibbana, and arhatship while nirvana after death is also referred to as the nirvana of the Aggregates, khandha-(pari)nibbana.

In Buddhism, an arhat (Sanskrit) or arahant (Pali) is one who has gained insight into the true nature of existence and has achieved nirvana.

Most modern scholars such as Rupert Gethin, Richard Gombrich, Donald Lopez and Paul Williams hold that nirvāṇa (nibbana in Pali, also called nibbanadhatu, the property of nibbana), means the 'blowing out' or 'extinguishing' of greed, aversion, and delusion, and that this signifies the permanent cessation of samsara and rebirth.

Buddhist path considers these essential for liberation.

Nirvana, or the liberation from cycles of rebirth, is the highest aim of the Theravada tradition.

The Theravāda Abhidhamma holds that there is a total of 82 possible types of dhammas, 81 of these are conditioned (sankhata), while one is unconditioned, which is nibbana.

Collins notes that the first type, nirvana in this life is also called bodhi (awakening), nirvana of the defilements or kilesa-(pari)nibbana, and arhatship while nirvana after death is also referred to as the nirvana of the Aggregates, khandha-(pari)nibbana.

The term is also being used to translate several other Buddhist terms and concepts, which are used to denote (initial) insight (prajna (Sanskrit), wu (Chinese), kensho and satori(Japanese)); knowledge (vidhya); the "blowing out" (Nirvana) of disturbing emotions and desires and the subsequent freedom or release (vimutti); and the attainment of supreme Buddhahood (samyak sam bodhi), as exemplified by Gautama Buddha.

Likewise, another sutta (AN II 161) has Sāriputta saying that asking the question "is there anything else?"

After being unable to find what they were looking for, the two friends went their separate ways but made a pact that if one was to find the path to the deathless, they would tell the other.

In the Mahayana tradition, the highest goal is Buddhahood, in which there is no abiding in Nirvana. Stanislaw Schayer, a Polish scholar, argued in the 1930s that the Nikayas preserve elements of an archaic form of Buddhism which is close to Brahmanical beliefs, and survived in the Mahayana tradition.

Mahāyāna generally holds that pursuing only the personal release from suffering i.e. nirvāṇa is a narrow or inferior aspiration, because it lacks the resolve to liberate all other sentient beings from saṃsāra (the round of rebirth) by becoming a Buddha.

the five skandhas or aggregates.

This suffering is extinguished by relinquishing attachments to aggregates.

According to Steven Collins, a synonym widely used for nirvana in early texts is "deathless" or "deathfree" (Pali: amata, sanskrit: amrta) and refers to a condition "where there is no death, because there is also no birth, no coming into existence, nothing made by conditioning, and therefore no time."

According to Thanissaro Bhikkhu, "the deathless" refers to the deathless dimension of the mind which is dwelled in permanently after nibbana.

In the early texts, the practice of the noble path and the four dhyanas was said to lead to the extinction of the three fires, and then proceed to the cessation of all discursive thoughts and apperceptions, then ceasing all feelings (happiness and sadness).

The ninth jhāna that is sometimes said to be beyond this state, the "cessation of perception and sensation", is devoid not only of objectivity, but of subjectivity as well.

In the Visuddhimagga, chapter I.v.6, Buddhaghosa identifies various options within the Pali canon for pursuing a path to nirvana.

An official view is given by a spokesman for the Buddha Sasana Council of Burma: the Canon contains everything needed to show the path to nirvāna; the commentaries and subcommentaries sometimes include much speculative matter, but are faithful to its teachings and often give very illuminating illustrations.

In the Theravada-tradition, nibbāna is regarded as an uncompounded or unconditioned (asankhata) dhamma (phenomenon, event) which is "transmundane", and which is beyond our normal dualistic conceptions.

Peter Harvey has defended the idea that nirvana in the Pali suttas refers to a kind of transformed and transcendent consciousness or discernment (viññana) that has "stopped" (nirodhena).

The debate as to whether tathāgatagarbha was just a way to refer to emptiness or whether it referred to some kind of mind or consciousness also resumed in Chinese Buddhism, with some Chinese Yogacarins, like Fazang and Ratnamati supporting the idea that it was an eternal non-dual mind, while Chinese Madhyamikas like Jizang rejecting this view and seeing tathāgatagarbha as emptiness and "the middle way."

Traces are evident in Han period Chinese translations of Buddhist scriptures, which hardly differentiated between Buddhist nirvana and Daoist immortality.

Stanislaw Schayer, a Polish scholar, argued in the 1930s that the Nikayas preserve elements of an archaic form of Buddhism which is close to Brahmanical beliefs, and survived in the Mahayana tradition.

But it has also incorporated the yogic tradition, as reflected in the use of jhana, which is rejected in other sutras as not achieving the final result of liberation.

The main focus of the sermons was on the psychological import of the term nibbāna and the deeper philosophical implications underlying this much-vexed term.

The term is also being used to translate several other Buddhist terms and concepts, which are used to denote insight (prajna, kensho and satori); knowledge (vidhya); the "blowing out" (Nirvana) of disturbing emotions and desires and the subsequent freedom or release (vimutti); and the attainment of Buddhahood, as exemplified by Gautama Buddha.

In the Buddhist context, nirvana refers to realization of non-self and emptiness, marking the end of rebirth by stilling the fires that keep the process of rebirth going.

It has as its characteristic (laksana) the revolution (paravrtti) of the dual base (asraya) in which one relinquishes all defilements (klesa), but does not abandon the world of death and rebirth (samsara).

XXII, 88), in the context of the four noble persons (ariya-puggala, see Four stages of enlightenment), the text refers to a precursor to the attainment of nibbana as being the complete eradication of "the defilements that are the root of the round" (vaa-mūla-kilesā).

This interpretation asserts that all reality is of dependent origination and a worldly construction of each human mind, therefore ultimately a delusion or ignorance.

Nirvana has also been deemed in Buddhism to be identical with anatta (non-self) and sunyata (emptiness) states.

He also equated nibbana with emptiness, writing that "Nibbana, the remainderless extinction of Dukkha, means the same as supreme emptiness."