Search results for: "Nibbana"

1. Play AudioImagining Freedom
    … His definition of the two kinds of nibbana, the nibbana experienced while you’re alive, and the nibbana experienced at death: That occurs only once. It doesn’t mean, simply because the occurrences are so few, that these are unimportant teachings. It’s just that trying to imagine nibbana is not the path. If we get too tied up in our efforts to imagine … 
2. Play AudioThe Buddha Didn’t Play Gotcha
    … A similar principle applies to nibbana. The path to nibbana does include desire, even though nibbana itself is the ending of all desire. If you had to drop all desire in order to get on the path, nibbana itself would be the path to nibbana. That would put you in a double bind. But the path actually includes desire. On the one hand, there … 
3. Play AudioWhen Nothing’s Happening
    … So it’s not nibbāna. It’s the realization of nibbāna. That moment of realization: That’s something you do. But then beyond that—nibbāna itself—there’s nothing to be done at all. So as far as that attainment is concerned, there is no right or wrong, no good or evil. Now, when arahants are engaged with the world and they have to … 
4. Play AudioThe End of Karma
    … Ajaan Mun made the comment that the attainment of nibbāna is one thing, nibbāna itself is something else. The attainment of nibbāna is the third noble truth. It’s something you do. You realize the third noble truth, you realize the attainment of nibbāna, but once you’re there you don’t have to do anything anymore. This is why it’s the ending … 
5. Play AudioNibbana Is Better than You Think
    … Nobody ever gets trapped in nibbana, because nibbana is freedom in the most absolute sense. So be prepared to have your values change as you follow the path. The practice opens possibilities that otherwise would never have been open to you before. We’re not trying to get back to some earlier innocent state, before social conditioning. As the Buddha said, we’re working … 
6. Play AudioThe Pursuit of Excellence
    … When, later on, he gave a list of other names for nibbana, the list came down to five categories that give an idea of how good nibbana is. One is that it’s a type of consciousness. There’s an awareness, but it’s an awareness without an object. The image the Buddha gives is of a sunbeam. He asks the monks, “Suppose there … 
7. Play AudioThe Karma of Self & Not-Self
    … Or, as they once asked Ajaan Maha Boowa whether nibbāna was self or not-self, he said, “Nibbāna is nibbāna.” You use concepts of self and not-self just like you use the stairs to get up to a house. Once you’ve gotten to the house, you don’t need the stairs anymore—you’ve arrived.
8. Play AudioThe Mind’s Ostinato
    … This is why Ajaan Mun says that nibbāna lies outside of the four noble truths. Some people will say **nibbāna is the third noble truth. The Buddha defines the third truth as the realization of nibbāna, but after realization, nibbāna itself has no duties. The realization, of course, is to be realized, but nibbāna itself has no duties, no activities at all. It was … 
9. Play AudioAction & Result
    … You do the path, you reach the realization of nibbāna. Nibbāna lies beyond action, though. The act of realizing it is on the threshold. Everything up to that threshold is a question of action and result. The question is, are you going to be a good judge of your actions or not? When we talk about testing the Buddhist teachings, a lot of people … 
10. Play AudioThink
     … Someone took the question to Ajaan Maha Boowa and asked him whether nibbana was self or not-self. His answer was, “Nibbana is nibbana. Self, not-self: These are perceptions. You use these perceptions on the path, but when you get to nibbana, you’ve got to let go of all perceptions.” As he was delivering this answer, he kept saying, phicaranaa si, which … 
11. Play AudioLook Around as You Follow the Trail
    Someone was complaining the other day that she didn’t understand the distinction between the realization of nibbāna and nibbāna itself. That’s a non-problem. Nibbāna is not something to understand. It’s a goal. It’s a place you go. You don’t get there by understanding it. You get there by following the path. It’s like thinking that you have … 
12. Play AudioThe Three Perceptions as Tools
     … There’s nibbana. In order to appreciate nibbana, you have to look at the down side of the things that would pull you in another direction. In order to stick with the path to nibbana, you have to look at the downside of any clinging that would get in the way. In other words, think again of the context of the four noble truths … 
13. Play AudioEnergy Channels
     … One way you can think about the development of the path is that it’s the realization of nibbāna. In other words, it’s in the process of developing the path that you uncover the deathless. You can’t just will yourself into nibbāna. As Ajaan Fuang once said, if we could get to nibbāna simply through the force of desire, we all would … 
14. Play AudioThere’s Work to Be Done
     … He made a lot about the idea of what he called “temporary nibbana,” when the mind just settles down and doesn’t have any clear sense of “I” or “me” in there. He said, “That’s it. That’s a taste of temporary nirvana.” But as Ajaan Fuang noted, the whole point of trying to go to nibbana is that it’s not temporary … 
15. Play AudioDetermined on Awakening
     … He says when you reach nibbana, the discernment that allows you to reach nibbāna is the highest possible discernment. Nibbana itself is the highest possible truth, the highest noble truth. The letting go of all greed, passion, aversion, delusion: That’s the highest possible relinquishment. And of course, the calming of all the disturbances in the mind that comes with nibbāna is the highest … 
16. Play AudioSelfing & Not-selfing
     … Can you imagine the newspapers in Canada debating whether nibbana is the self or not-self? They actually had columns in the newspapers in Thailand devoted to this. So someone took the question to Ajaan Maha Boowa and asked him if nibbana was self or not-self, and he said, “Nibbana is nibbana.” In other words, concepts of self and not-self just don … 
17. Play AudioTo Comprehend Food
     … As the Buddha said, if you see nibbana as having any negative aspects, that’s wrong view. Nibbana is positive all around, from every angle. When nibbāna is possible, you have to ask yourself, which of your attachments here is really worth the trouble it entails? The problem with nibbana, of course, is that you can’t see it. And there’s always that … 
18. Play AudioThe Kamma of Self & Not-Self
     … There was a Buddhist sect that claimed that nibbana was your true self. And a lot of Buddhist scholars came out en masse and said “No! No! No! Nibbana is not self.” Someone then asked Ajaan Maha Boowa whether nibbana was self or not self, and he replied, “Nibbana is nibbana.” Then he explained not self as a tool, self as a tool. You … 
19. Play AudioIf at First You Don’t Succeed
     … There’s a passage in the Canon where he gives 33 different names for nibbāna: nibbāna being the image of a fire going out. Most of the names are metaphorical, either that or they’re negative descriptions describing what nibbāna does not have, because after all, nibbāna can’t properly be described. But you can get some idea through metaphors. But the quality of … 
20. Play AudioGood Fundamentals
     … So this idea that nibbana is somehow irresponsible, or going to nibbana is irresponsible, is a total misunderstanding. You can’t just slip off there and disappear. The path to nibbana requires generosity, compassion, and a quality that the Buddha called purity, in which you look at your actions to see: Do they really lead to long-term happiness? Are they really harmless? Do … 
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