Search results for: "Nibbana"

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  2. Appreciating Dispassion
     … Someone once asked the Buddha, “What is virtue for?” “Virtue,” he says, “is for the sake of concentration.” “What’s concentration for?” “Concentration is for the sake of discernment.” “What’s discernment for?” “For the sake of release.” “What’s release for?” “For the sake of nibbāna.” “What is nibbāna for?” That’s when the Buddha said, “You can’t keep going with these … 
  3. Perceptions of Self & Not-Self
     … Imagine a tabloid newspaper in the United States debating the issue of whether nibbana was self or not-self: *The New York Daily News, The New York Post. *Well, that’s what you had in Thailand. So someone asked Ajaan Maha Boowa whether nibbana was self or not-self, and he said nibbana is nibbana. When you get to that point, you don’t … 
  4. Looking Off to the Side
     … You get to nibbana not by looking straight at nibbana, but by looking off a little bit to the side. You get around the quandary of craving for becoming and craving for not-becoming by looking at things in a way where the basic ideas of becoming and not-becoming—i.e., the idea of there being a self or there being no self … 
  5. The Samsaric Mud Fight
     … In fact, they define samsara as being identical with nibbana if, they say, you look at it the right way. That way the bodhisattva gets to be in samsara and nibbana at the same time. But the early teachings don’t treat samsara as a place. They treat it as a process. Samsara literally means “the wandering-on.” It’s an activity. A process … 
  6. Meaning & Importance
     … What’s a little disturbing for a lot of us is that once he arrived at total awakening and nibbana, there was no need for meanings anymore. There was no more for-the-sake-of anything. Everything up to that point was for the sake of this: total release. But once release is gained, it’s not for the sake of anything. It has … 
  7. Realizing Cessation
     … As Ajaan Maha Boowa once said, if you could take nibbana out and show it to other people, they wouldn’t want anything else. We don’t talk much about the duty with regard to this truth because it depends on doing the duties with regard to the other noble truths. In other words, you have to comprehend suffering, you have to abandon craving … 
  8. The Desire to Be Free from Desire
     … This means all things good, all things bad—everything except nibbana is rooted in desire. Everything you experience is shaped by your desires. The mind is not a passive thing. It’s active. It goes out looking for things: looking for food, looking for clothing, shelter, looking for happiness. What we’re doing as we practice is to take that tendency and direct it … 
  9. Feeding Off of Others
     … When the Buddha talks about nibbāna being totally satisfying, we have to take him at his word and give him the benefit of the doubt. Ajaan Maha Boowa talks about this. He says that if people who’ve experienced nibbāna could take it out and show it to everyone else, nobody would want anything else. Every other market in the world would go empty … 
  10. True & Beneficial
     … The only thing that’s really satisfying is nibbāna—a happiness that’s totally unconditioned—and it is total. As the Buddha said, if you think there’s anything negative or lacking in nibbāna, that’s wrong view. So when an insight comes, ask yourself: “To what extent does this really liberate me from my sufferings? And which part of my mind is satisfied … 
  11. The Brahmavihāras Aren’t Enough
    There’s an idea that gained currency a while back—and it still pops up again every now and then tody—that the brahmavihāras are a complete path to nibbāna. If you develop one or four of them, that’s all you have to do to gain total release. The idea came from a scholar who was reading a sutta in the Canon where … 
  12. Not-self
     … There’s a passage in Muttodaya, the teachings of Ajaan Mun, where he says that the third noble truth is not the same thing as nibbana. It’s the realization of nibbana. The realization of nibbana has its duty, which is that we have to realize it. But nibbana itself has no duties. And at that point, none of the three perceptions apply. No … 
  13. Dispassion
     … So learn to see dispassion in a good light and realize that even though it is the highest of all dhammas, there’s something higher still, which is nibbana, the ending of dhammas. Ajaan Mun makes this point. He says that the third noble truth is not the final goal. It’s the last step, the step that leads to nibbana. There’s a … 
  14. Appreciating Merit
    There’s that chant we have at the end of every chanting session: “Through the power of all the Buddhas, all the Dhamma, all the Sangha, may you forever be well.” What is that power? Where does it come from? The Buddha gained his power from his generosity, his virtue, and his meditation, developing concentration, developing discernment all the way to nibbana. As did … 
  15. The Noble Truths Come First
     … There was a controversy years back in Thailand as to whether nibbana was self or not-self. The issue got so politicized that it made its way into the newspapers and on TV. So someone asked Ajaan Maha Boowa whether nibbana was self or not-self, and he answered, “Nibbana is nibbana.” In other words, you don’t apply either of those perceptions to … 
  16. Respect for Heedfulness
     … If we really do follow the path, if we’re diligent at it, keep with it, stick with it, it opens us up to Nibbana. And when people reach Nibbana they look back on the pleasures of their daily lives before and see that they were an awful lot of burden, an awful lot of stress compared to what they’ve found. Our problem … 
  17. Refuge in the Dhamma
     … The end of kamma is nibbana, where the ultimate refuge is. The Buddha has lots of names for nibbana. Nibbana’s not the only one. It’s the one he used most often, but he also describes it as security, island, harbor, refuge. And the kind of refuge is indicated by some of the names that indicate that it’s really special: deathless, undecaying … 
  18. Sensitivity & Skill
     … As Ajaan Lee once said, nibbana is what’s easy; it’s the pleasures of the world that are hard because you have to look after them. And here, we’d include jhana as one of the pleasures of the world. You have to tend to it. It’s always threatening to go away—whereas nibbana, once you’ve found it, doesn’t require … 
  19. Equanimity Isn’t Nibbana
    Equanimity Isn’t Nibbana June 16, 2009 As we sit here meditating, we’re engaged in a type of kamma. It’s called the kamma that puts an end to kamma. But this doesn’t mean that it burns away old kamma. Old kamma doesn’t burn. One of the great ironies in the history of Buddhism is that some of the teachings the … 
  20. Your Inner Coach
     … But if you believe there is such a thing as nibbana, there is a way out. And as it turns out, the path leading there is an honorable path. So he said, even if it turned out there wasn’t such thing as nibbana, the fact that you believe in it and act on it, at the very least encourages you to live an … 
  21. Self Determination
     … Of course, this freedom of choice is not the freedom of nibbana. The question sometimes comes up, “The fact that we have freedom of choice: Is that our first taste of nibbana?” No, it’s not. The freedom of nibbana is totally unconditioned, whereas freedom of choice is a conditioned freedom. But the more you make skillful choices in exercising your freedom of choice … 
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