What is nibbana?

AQA special

What is nibbana?

Richard Gray explores the Buddhist concept of nibbana

AQA Unit J World religions 1: Buddhism

In Buddhism, the idea of life and death involves a process called the cycle of existence whereby the view of life is not linear. A person is born and lives but upon death there is no sense of finality. In Western religions there tends to be the final stage of judgement and reward or punishment by a creator god. There is no need for such an idea in Buddhism. Existence is cyclic. Life simply changes form at death and continues with a new life. This idea of the universe is collectively known as samsara.

Integral to this whole idea of samsara at a very basic level are the concepts known as rebirth and kamma. However, on a more subtle and advanced level, it is only when a person has followed the Eightfold Path and become an arahant that samsara collapses at the point of death and the concept of parinibbana is achieved. See Box 1 for definitions of some key terms.

AO1 and nibbana

In the AQA specification, assessment objective (AO) 1 highlights the process of this collapse, and in this ‘AQA special’ we will look at the three aspects listed:

■ the truth of the end of craving and the end of dukkha arising from it

■ contrasts between samsara and nibbana

■ the experience of the arahant in this world and beyond death

End of craving and of dukkha

Tanha literally means craving or thirst but can also be referred to as attachment. The Buddhist analysis of the ‘arising’ (samudaya) of suffering (dukkha) identifies the reasons for suffering. The principal reason is tanha — that is, the second Noble Truth. In Buddhism the concept of tanha is seen to be a powerful mental force deep within us all. According to the Buddhist scholar Walpola Rahula: ‘It [tanha] is not the first or the only cause of the arising of dukkha, but it is the most individual cause.’ Professor Peter Harvey further identifies both views and conceit as other causes of dukkha. Both of these are deeply rooted psychological drives that feed the ego.

The question remains, however: ‘If tanha is the most immediate cause for dukkha, then what drives the need for tanha?’ The most common driving forces behind tanha are the ‘three poisons’ or ‘three fires’ of greed, hatred and delusion. These fires burn away and fuel the idea of, and desire for, a self and the very notion of existence.

The Dhamma Cakkapavattana Sutta describes three types of tanha:

■ for sensual pleasures

■ for existence

■ for non-existence

It is interesting to note that within these three types of tanha we can identify the extremes of pleasure and pain that the Buddha encountered during his life. It is no coincidence then that the eradication of tanha needs a middle way.

Nirodha

The idea of nirodha is the third Noble Truth. Nirodha literally means to cease. It refers to stopping tanha. Once tanha, or grasping, is stopped, peace and calm (nibbana) will follow. However, although nirodha directly precedes it, it is not the cause of nibbana. Nibbana is unconditioned or uncaused. Nirodha is the eradication or ‘stopping’ of negatives, states or conditions that stimulate grasping. Nirodha is not an accumulation of positive qualities or achievements that make up nibbana. Nirodha is the stage at which the wheel of life ceases to turn.

With the application of nirodha, ignorance is transformed and there is insight into reality. All states that result from conditioned arising are stopped. During life for the arahant, this means detachment from such states. Beyond life, in parinibbana, this is a permanent feature.

In The Buddhist Dictionary, Mahathera Nyanatiloka writes:

‘Nibbana constitutes the highest and ultimate goal of all Buddhist aspirations, i.e. absolute extinction of that life-affirming will, manifested as Greed, Hatred and Delusion…the ultimate and absolute deliverance from all future rebirth, old age, disease and death, from all suffering and misery.’

It is craving that causes suffering. Since craving is driven by the three fires, the image follows that if one was to curb or ‘blow out’ (nibbati) the ‘fires’, then nibbana is realised and there is an end to dukkha that arises from craving.

Samsara vs nibbana Samsara

Samsara is the word used to describe the cycle of life, death and rebirth and literally means ‘around and around’. In essence, samsara describes the arising of mental and physical phenomena due to causes and conditions. This is known as paticcasamuppada, which means ‘conditioned arising’. There are 12 groups of causes and conditions referred to as nidanas (‘links’) that serve to keep the cycle of existence in motion.

The idea of existence begins with ignorant states that generate consciousness and senses, an existence that also meanders through the physical world, both collective and individual, and then ends with decay and death, only to be regenerated once again through ignorance. This image of the cycle of existence is portrayed in a wellknown piece of art called The Tibetan Wheel of Life.

What is nibbana?

The ‘experience’ of nibbana cannot be defined because it lies beyond the world of samsara and conditioned phenomena: it is therefore ‘unconditioned’. Nibbana cannot be a place like ‘heaven’, but it cannot be ‘nothingness’ either. Since language is created for use within the conditioned world, some consider it ultimately inappropriate to use words to define the ‘unconditioned’ (i.e. nibbana).

There is a famous story to illustrate this from Mahayana Buddhism. When the monk Vimalakirti is asked to describe and explain the ultimate truth, he responds with what is known as ‘the thunderous silence of Vimilakirti’. This profound response is enough to express the ineffability of nibbana. Another Buddhist writing, the Lankavatara Sutra, compares the use of language in explaining nibbana to an elephant that gets stuck in the mud.

However, words are necessary for explanation — yet there is still a dilemma:

■ If nibbana is described in positive terms then people will become attached to it.

■ If nibbana is described in negative terms then people assume that it is a ‘state’ of nothingness (which is a contradiction in itself).

Walpola Rahula offers various descriptions of both the positive and negative ways of depicting nibbana. The ‘negative’ depictions are not always negative since saying that nibbana is the extinction of thirst, or absence of desire, is not really a ‘negative’ thing. In short, when attempting to describe nibbana,

Buddhist texts do this in two ways:

■ what nibbana is not

■ what nibbana is like

Nibbana is the absence of suffering; it is having no more attachment. It is not conditioned; it is the ‘blowing out’ of the flames that fuel our attachments. It is like freedom, a higher spiritual state, enlightenment or ultimate and perfect wisdom.

Professor Harvey refers to nibbana as ‘a radically transformed state of consciousness’ and he disagrees with traditional Theravada Buddhism in terms of a precise definition for ‘consciousness’. Traditional Buddhism states that since nibbana is objectless, it cannot be a form of consciousness. This is because consciousness always has to have an object — otherwise it could not be aware of itself as consciousness. For Harvey, nibbana definitely is ‘objectless consciousness’.

Experience of the arahant

There are two types of nibbana:

■ the one beyond life that the Buddha ‘entered’ (parinibbana)

■ the experience of the arahant during life

The arahant that has realised nibbana during life still has to live out their earthly existence. The experience of the arahant is in no way inferior to nibbana beyond life (parinibbana). They are the same experience in different contexts.

Nibbana during life

The realisation of nibbana during life is the temporary stopping of all conditioned states. Nibbana during life is a state that excludes dukkha and supersedes mind and body. It has no support and no mental object. It is seen as emptiness (sunnata) and is as indescribable as empty space. An arahant can drift in and out of nibbana during life. Professor Harvey describes nibbana during life as ‘a transcendent, timeless experience which totally destroys attachment, hatred and delusion…a state in which all the personality-factors and causal links “stop”’.

The arahant has experienced the ‘deathless’ and yet remains within the bounds of samsara and is still subject to dukkha (suffering). The impact of dukkha upon the arahant, however, is very different from normal human experience.

The arahant has destroyed the three fires of attachment, has complete mental health and their actions no longer create karmic results. Pain is felt in physical terms and recognised as such. However, there is no anxiety over the fact that it is pain. The body may be disturbed (i.e. it can bruise) but the mind remains unaffected, undisturbed and totally concentrated. The pain is not identified as ‘mine’.

Nibbana can sometimes be an object or glimpse experienced by others. Those disciples immediately below the arahant (stream enterer, once-returner, nonreturner) all have glimpses of the nibbanic object but not direct experience of nibbana like the arahant. In his book The Selfless Mind, Professor Harvey describes this state as follows: ‘A state of high insight which has nibbana as its object is the “signless concentration”, an advanced meditative state…which is itself simply the best of all constructed states.’

Parinibbana

The problem with nibbana beyond life is that all questions about it hold inherent misconceptions. For example, there are many questions that are often asked about the fate of an enlightened ‘self’:

■ Are ‘you’ enlightened?

■ Will ‘I’ be enlightened?

■ What will it feel like for ‘me’ when ‘I’ am enlightened?

In Buddhism, as all things are ‘not self’ (anatta) then such questions are illogical. In the same way, the idea of nibbana beyond life as ‘existing’ in some sense is another misconception. It is the ‘middle way’; it neither ‘is’ nor ‘is not’! The Buddha saw such questions as time wasting and a useless diversion from spiritual practice. As one Buddhist text observes: ‘when all phenomena have been removed, all ways of describing have also been removed’.

This can be explained in other terms. For example, if we take D as produced by the arising of A, B and C, and it is also simultaneously the factor of causation for A, then we have a cyclic, interdependent series of events. In simple terms, this relates to the aquisition of factors, or attachments. It is the cycle of existence. Nibbana is the eradication of factors of ‘grasping’ (tanha) that cause attachment. If we remove D, then the cycle disintegrates because A, B and C are simultaneously removed. What then remains to be identified as the cause? There is nothing that can be identified as a cause. Nor is there anything left over to describe in relation to these causes.

The Buddha often compared his teaching to a raft that takes a person across water. Once the far shore is reached, the raft has no more use and it is discarded.

This ‘AQA special’ is the responsibility of RELIGIOUS STUDIES REVIEW and has been neither provided nor approved by AQA.

Richard Gray is a former head of religious studies.