Nibbana, Here and Now | Luang By Sumedho April 9, 2010

The difficulty with the word Nibbana is that its meaning is beyond words. It is essentially indefinable.

Another difficulty is that several Buddhists come to Nibbana (Sanskrit: nirvana) as something unattainable – as something so high and so remote that we are not sufficiently deserving of it. Or we see Nibbana as a goal, something unknown and undefined, which we must somehow try to achieve.

Most of us are conditioned in this way. We want to achieve or achieve something we don't have. In this way, Nibbana is seen as something that, if we work hard, keep the moral precepts (sila), meditate diligently, become monastic, and devote our lives to practice, perhaps we can achieve - even if we are not sure what it is.

Ajahn Chah would use the words “the reality of non-attachment” as a definition of Nibbana: realising the reality of ‘non-attachment’. This helps put it in context, because here the emphasis is on waking up to the way we cling and even cling to words like ‘nibbana’, ‘Buddhism’, ‘practice’, ‘sila’ or whatever.

It is often said that the Buddhist path is one of detachment, but this can become just another affirmation to which we cling and cling. It's a Catch-22*: No matter how much we try to make sense, it ends in total confusion due to the limitation of language and perception. We have to go beyond language and perception, and the only way to go beyond emotional thoughts and habits is through awareness – being aware of thoughts and emotions. “The island beyond which one cannot go” is the metaphor for this state of being awake and conscious, as opposed to the concept of becoming awake and conscious.

In meditation classes, people often start with a basic illusion, which they never put to the test: the idea that “I am someone with many attachments and many desires and I have to practice in order to get rid of these attachments and desires. I must not cling to anything.” This is usually the starting point. Therefore, we begin our practice from this base and often the result is disappointment and disappointment, because our practice is based on attachment to an idea.

Eventually, we realise that no matter how hard we try to free ourselves from attachment and desire, or whatever we do – become monks or ascetics, sit for hours and hours, go to retreats over and over again, do all the things we believe will rid us of these tendencies – we end up feeling disappointed, because the basic illusion has never been recognised.

That is why the metaphor of the island beyond which one cannot go is so powerful, for it points to the principle of a consciousness beyond which one cannot go. It is very simple, very direct and impossible to be conceived. We have to trust that. We have to trust this simple ability that we all have to be fully present and fully awake, and begin to recognize the attachment and the ideas that we have about ourselves, about the world around us, about our thoughts, perceptions and feelings.

The path of mindfulness is the path of recognition of conditions as they are. We simply acknowledge their presence, without judging, criticizing, or praising them. We accept their presence, whether they are positive or negative conditions.

And as we rely more and more on this awareness or mindfulness, we begin to experience the reality of the island beyond which we cannot go.

When I started practicing meditation, the idea I had of myself was that of someone who was very confused. I wanted to get out of this mess and get rid of my problems, and become someone with a lucid thought who could one day become enlightened. This is what led me (towards) Buddhist meditation and monastic life.

But then, reflecting on this position that “I am someone who needs to do something”, I started to see it as a created condition – an idea that I had created. And if I acted on that assumption, even if I could develop all sorts of aptitudes and live a praiseworthy, good and beneficial life for myself and others, at the end of the story, I might be quite disappointed that I did not achieve the goal of Nibbana.

Fortunately, in monastic life everything is directed to the present moment. We are always learning to test our ideas about ourselves and to see beyond them. One of the biggest challenges is facing the idea that ” is someone who needs to do something to become enlightened in the future “, by simply acknowledging it as an assumption created by us. That which is conscious in us knows that this idea is something created out of ignorance, or lack of understanding.

When we see and recognize this fully, then we stop creating these assumptions.

Being aware is not making value judgments about our thoughts, emotions, actions, or words. To be conscious is to fully understand those things – they are what they are right now. In this way, I discovered that it is very useful to learn to be aware of the conditions without judging them. Thus, the karma resulting from past words and actions, as it arises in the present, is fully recognized without being distorted, without becoming a problem. That's what it is. That which arises ceases. When we recognize this and allow things to cease according to their nature, this realization of cessation gives us a growing faith in the practice of detachment. The attachments we have, though the good thing like Buddhism, can also be seen as attachments that blind us. This does not mean that we have to get rid of Buddhism. We simply recognize attachment as attachment and find that we create it ourselves because of our ignorance.

As we reflect on this, the tendency to cling to things diminishes, and the reality of non-attachment reveals itself in what we may call Nibbana.

If we look from this prism, Nibbana exists here and now. It is not something to achieve in the future.

Reality is here and now. It's really simple, but it's beyond words, beyond description. It cannot be bestowed or even transmitted, it can only be known by each person, by himself.

When we begin to realize or recognize detachment as the Way, we can feel quite frightened by it. It may seem like some kind of annihilation is taking place: Everything I think I am in the world, everything I assume to be stable and real begins to fade and that can be scary. But if we have the faith to continue to endure these emotional reactions and let that which arises, ceases, appears and disappears according to its nature, then we find our stability, not in reaching or attaining something, but in being – being awake, being conscious.

Many years ago, in William James’ book ‘The Varieties of Religious Experience’, I found a poem by A. Charles Swinburne. Despite having what some have described as a degenerate mind, Swinburne has produced some very powerful reflections:

 Here begins the sea that ends only at the end of the world.

Where we are,

could we see the next lighthouse of the high seas, beyond

of these waves that shine,

We'd know what no man knew

or that no human eye has peered

Ah, but here the heart of man throbs, eager for

Unknown with joyful joy,

from the margin that has no margin beyond it,

The whole sea begins.

         (Extracted from “On the Verge” in “A Midsummer Holiday”)

The poem is an echo of the Buddha's answer to Kappa's question, which is found in the Sutta Nipata:

Next comes Kappa, the brahmin student.

"Lord," he said, "there are people trapped in the midst of the current, in terror and in fear of the rush of the river of being, where death and decrepitude drown them. For their good, Lord, tell me where to find an island, tell me where there is firm land, beyond the reach of all this pain.

“Kappa,” said the Master, “for the good of these people trapped in the middle of the river of being, oppressed by death and decrepitude, I will tell you where to find firm land.”

“There is an island, an island beyond which you cannot go. It is a place of ‘non-existence’, a place of ‘non-possession’ and ‘non-attachment’. It is the ultimate end of death and decrepitude, and that is why I call it Nibbana (the extinct, the serene)."

“There are people who, in full consciousness, have achieved it and are completely serene here and now. They do not become slaves working for Mara, for Death; they are not subjugated by their power.”

~ SN 1092-5 (translated by Ven. Saddhatissa)

In English, "nothingness" may sound like annihilation, like nihilism. But you can also put the emphasis on the word ‘thingness’, and there you have something like ‘no-thingness’. Nibbana is not something you can find. It is the place of “non-existence”, “non-possessiveness” and detachment. It is a place, as Ajahn Chah said, where one experiences “the reality of non-attachment.” Nibbana is a reality that each of us can know for ourselves – once we recognise and realise non-attachment.

     (Excerpt from “The Island”, published in spring 2010, edition of Buddhadharma)

Translation by Filipe Reis

*Catch 22 is a book by Joseph Heller, where a self-contradictory logic predominates, full of paradoxes and nonsense, being circular and repetitive; Logical irrationality prevails throughout the book. Hence the analogy, because we cannot reach a consensus due to the limitation of words and perceptions.