6.2. Nibbāna in Pāli Commentarial Texts

As has been mentioned with canonical interpretations of nibbāna, the meaning of nibbāna of nibbāna is understood with reference to what it means to the audience. Pāli commentators believe that the canonical interpretations are clear enough to understand that nibbāna is. All Buddha’s teachings are vey much based on theoretical application for their practical foundation. However, it is pointed out that it is definitely not sufficient to realize the true essence of nibbāna unless one has a practice approach. In fact, one is supposed to learn theory first, and then one must apply theories to the practice for the sake mental development. In this way, one can understand the significant of nibbāna.

Pāli commentators made an important statement about realizing the nature of nibbāna. One must have a proper approach in practice in order to understand the canonical interpretation of nibbāna. They strongly affirm in their statements that without the practice of meditation, it is impossible to realize the true nature of nibbāna or the experience of enlightenment. To confirm their position, the commentator, Ven. Anuruddha attempted to state his view with logical and practical sense in the Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha.

The statement is as follows:

Nibbānaṃ pana lokuttarasaṅkhātaṃ catumaggañaṇena sacchikātabbaṃ magga-phalānaṃ ārammaṇabhūtaṃ vānasankhātāya taṇhāya nikkhantattā nibbānanti pavuccati.^[1]

Nibbāna is termed supramundane, and is to be realized by the knowledge of the four paths.^[2] It becomes an object to the paths and fruits, and it called nibbāna because it is a departure from craving, which is an entanglement.^[3]

Based on the aforementioned statement, one can realize the nature of nibbāna through lokuttaracitta (supramundane consciousness). One can attain nibbāna through lokuttaramagga (noble path or the transcendental state of the path). Who can realize nature of nibbāna? According to Theravāda Buddhism, only enlightened beings can truly realize nibbāna. In this canonical context, it is understood that the property of nibbāna belongs to only enlightened beings.

Ven. Buddhagosa was the well-know commentator who lived in the fifth century A.D. His most prominent work is the Visuddhimagga, and Pālicanonical commentaries. He was able to summarize the Tipiṭaka by combining ancient commentaries and making a new commentary, as an epitome. Since there is so much confusion in Buddhist doctrines concerning the concept of nibbāna, he attempted to read just the aforementioned interpretations. First, he analyzed the meaning of nibbāna through practice and then clarified what nibbāna meant to him. The most significant point of his work is clear and concise. He had the ability to make a clear outline for all the teachings of the Buddha. The outline is: in order to attain nibbāna or enlightenment, one must fulfill the three training exercises, sīla (morality or virtue), samādhi (concentration) and paññā (wisdom). This is the essential requirement for everyone who really wants to attain insight wisdom or enlightenment. However, he did not ignore the necessary prerequisite requirements, such as pāramī (perfections) and saddhā (faith) and adhiṭṭhāna (resolution in the Dhamma practice).

His affirmation is as follows:

Apica nibbānaṃ natthīti na vattabbaṃ. Kasmā? Paṭipatti vañjhbhāvāpajjanato. Asati hi nibbāne sammādiṭṭhipurejavāya sīlādikhandhattayasaṅgahāya sammā-paṭipattiyā vañjhabhāvo āpajjati na cāyaṃ vañjhā nibbānapāpa-natoti.^[4]

Again, it should not be said that nibbāna does not exist. Why not? Because it then follows that the way would be futile. For if nibbāna were non-existence, then it would follow that the right way, which includes the three aggregates beginning with virtue and headed by right understand, would be futile. And it is not futile because it does reach nibbāna.^[5]

In the Visuddhimagga, Ven. Buddhaghosa precisely analyzed the interpretation of nibbāna and remarked that same people misunderstand the concept of nibbāna as a hare’s horn (sasavisāṇa) which does not really exist. He strongly rejected the concept of the non-existence of nibbāna, because it is apprehendable by the way of virtue (sīla), concentration (samādhi) and wisdom (paññā). He attempts to readjust some former interpretations in order to get a better understanding. For instant, he deals with the Ven. Sāriputta’ s interpretation of nibbāna, which stated that nibbāna means rāgakkhaya (extinction of craving or destruction of lust).

The statement reads as follows:

“Yo kho āvuso rāgakkhayoti ādivacanato khayo nibbānanti ce. Naarahattassāpi khayamattāpajjanato. Tampi hi yo kho āvuso rāgakkhayo to ādinā nayena niddiṭṭhaṃ.^[6]

But is not nibbāna destruction, because of the passage beginning “That, friend, which is the destruction of greed… (of hate … of delusion...is nibbāna)” That is not so, because it would follow that Arahantship also was mere destruction. For that too is described in the same way beginning “That, friend, which is the destructionof greed…of hate … of delusion … is Arahantship”.^[7]

Regarding the issue of destruction, he refers back to the original word rāgakkhaya, which means destruction. Ven. Buddhaghosa argues that khaya (destruction) does not refer to nibbāna, but the aggregates of the Arahants in Pāli, that is, enlightened beings. Enlightened beings destroy all defilements that have the kammic power to generate new existences. He attempts to elucidate a clear statement, providing the words of the Buddha as support. “Because it is the word of the Omniscient One, nibbāna is not non-existent as regards individual essence in the ultimate sense; for this said: ‘Monks, there is an unborn, an unbecome, an unmade, and an unformed’.^[8]

The conclusion of his interpretation is: “Only this nibbāna is permanent (precisely because it is uncreated); and it is immaterial because it transcends the individual essence of matter. The Buddha’s goal is one and has no plurality.”^[9] However, in this context of the interpretation of nibbāna, the presumably contemporary commentator Arahant Upatissa briefly commented on nibbāna in his own way in the Vimuttimagga (The Path of Freedom). His emphasis is on “the utter fading away and cessation of the very craving, leaving it, giving it up, the being delivered from, and the doing away with it. Thus should be known the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Ill.^[10] For him, the state of not coming to birth, not perishing in nature, and realizing the Third Noble Truth, i.e., the cessation of suffering or the ending of ill, is called nibbāna. To sum up the statement, the interpretation of nibbāna by the commentator is clear and concise. One can know the interpretation of nibbāna from different perspectives. These perspectives tell us that nibbāna is nothing but freedom from kammavipāka (the resultants of past and present kamma) and the bondage of saṃsāra (the cycle of birth and death or existences) generated by taṇhā (craving) or loba (attachment) and ignorance (avijjā). Thus, the significance of liberation can be understood in many ways.

What is Nibbāna? Indeed, to respond to such a simple question, one would have to write volumes of books in reply. Since concept of nibbāna is philosophically critical and theoretically argumentative, no one can write a reasonable answer to that simple question. Possibly, the more one explains, the more people will be confused. Walpola Rahula, author of “What the Buddha Taught” shares his view of that issue. “The only reasonable reply to give to the question is that it can never be answered completely and satisfactorily in words, because human language is too poor to express the real nature of the Absolute Truth or Ultimate Reality which is nibbāna. Language is created and used by masses of human beings to express things and ideas experienced by their sense organs and their mind. A supramundane experience like that of the Absolute Truth is not of such a category. Therefore there cannot be words to express that experience, just as the fish had no words in his vocabulary to express the nature of the solid land. The tortoise told his friend the fish that he (the tortoise) just returned to the lake after a walk on the land. ‘Of course’ the fish said, ‘You mean swimming.’ The tortoise tried to explain that one couldn’t swim on the land that it was solid, and that one walked on it. But the fish insisted that there could be nothing like it, that is must be liquid like his lake, with waves, and that one must be able to dive and dive and swim there.

Words are symbols representing things and ideas known to us; and these symbols do not and cannot convey the true nature of even ordinary things. Language is considered deceptive and misleading in the matter of understand of the truth.”^[11]

Therefore, before analyzing what nibbāna is, one should know what the character (lakkhaṇa) of nibbāna is, and what its function (rasa) and its manifestation (paccupaṭṭhāna) are in order to understand more clearly the state of nibbāna.

In the Buddhist text named Sammohavinodanī aṭṭhakathā, commentary of Vibhaṅga Pāli, the character of nibbāna has been described: santilakkhanaṃnibbānaṃ–absolute peace is the character of nibbāna.^[12] Santi (peace) here means ultimate tranquility which is free from ten kinds of defilements (kilesa),^[13] and free from the eleven types of fires (aggi).^[14] That is to say that worldling (puthujjana) has desires and rejoices in the inner and outer sense-bases and cleaves to them. Consequently, the stream of defilements carries away all these ordinary beings; they are utterly enslaved by birth, death, pain and despair. On the country, the noble disciples (ariya) do not rejoice in the inner and outer sense-bases and do not cleave to them or are not attached to them. Thus, they are counted as beings free from desire, illusion and craving from worldly pleasure and are at peace. Regarding cessation of desire, Ven. Nāgasena addressed the subject in the following way:

From him (them), not rejoicing in them (the inner and outer sense bases), not approving of them or cleaving to them, craving ceases; from the cessation of craving is the cessation of clinging; from the cessation of clinging is the cessation of becoming; from the cessation of becoming is the cessation of birth; from the cessation of birth, old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair cease. Thus is the cessation of this whole mass of suffering. In this way, sire, cessation is nibbāna.^[15]

Referring to the above statement, it is understood that cessation does not mean absolute cessation for everything, but cessation of defilements that cause one to be in the round of rebirth and death. It is said that there is no longer rebirth so there is no death. Thus nibbāna is described as “santilakkhaṇa” (the ultimate peace). In this regard, it is theoretically clear that the original massage of nibbāna has nothing to do with the concept of nothingness or absolute cessation. It is absolute peace and ultimate truth brought about by the ceasing of all the fires of the defilements and the ceasing of all kinds of suffering. For this reason, the meaning of nibbāna is not annihilation.

The function of nibbāna is described in Vibhaṅga aṭṭhakathā as accutirasaṃ (the state of deathlessness or everlasting peace). This means that since the enlightened beings have entered the state of absolute peace, they will definitely on longer return to the existence of saṃsāra (cycle of rebirth). And it is understood that proclaiming the state of absolute peace has nothing to do with the cultural process of the three sub-moments: arising (uppāda), presence (ṭhiti) and dissolution (bhaṅga). In the state of nibbāna, the nature of absolute peace involves no dissolution. Therefore, it is necessary to differentiate between absolute peace (nibbāna) and externalism (supreme soul) in this context. The concept of eternalism is directly related to the concept of soul theory. According to that theory the soul is eternal and everlasting and that soul is linked in union with God or Brahma. As a matter of fact, soul theory deals with a universal God and Brahma; however, Buddhists affirm that nibbāna has nothing to do with such a concept of the eternal soul or an eternal God and Brahma.

The manifestation of nibbāna is animittapaccupaṭṭhāna (signlessness by way of manifestation). This means that it consists of no signs, no size, no shape, no formation and no dissolution in the realization of enlightened beings. The nature of nibbāna has arisen from the nature of saṅkhāra (mental formations) and saṅkhata (conditional existence); however, there is no sign, no size, and no shape in the state of absolute nibbāna.^[16] Moreover, there is no similar thing that can be compared to the nature of nibbāna. “It is not possible by smile or argument or cause or method to point out the shape or configuration or age or size of nibbāna.^[17] In terms of this nibbāna, the Budha precisely addressed a statement to help the followers know what it is.

The statement is as follows.

Viññāṇaṃ anidassanaṃ, anantaṃ sabbatopabhaṃ.
Ettha āpo ca pathavī, tejo vāyo na gadhati.
Ettha dīghañca rassañcā, aṇuṃ thūlaṃ subhāsubhaṃ.
Ettha nāmañca rūpañca, asesaṃ uparujjhati.
Vaññāṇassa nirodhena, ettha taṃ uparujjhati.^[18]

Where consciousness is signless, boundless, all-luminous.
That’s where earth, water, fire and air find no footing,
There both long and short, small and great, fair and foul,
There “name and form” are wholly destroyed.
With the cessation of consciousness that is all destroyed.¹³⁷

In fact, since the nature of^[19] nibbāna is so proud and abyssal, it is impossible for worldlings to see it or realize it. This is so, because one has not attained the path and fruition knowledge through meditation. It is not because nibbāna does not really exist. Let us look at an example; for instance, a blind man finds it impossible to see the sun and the moon. In this regard, we cannot say that the blind man cannot see them, because the sun and the moon do not truly exist. Indeed, they truly exist, but the man unfortunately lacks the power of vision to see them. Similarly, worldlings (puthujjhanas) do not see the ultimate truth of nibbāna due to the lack of supramundane wisdom.

For this reason, the Buddhist text, named Abhidhammattha-saṅgaha, precisely states:

Nibbānaṃ pana lokuttarasaṅkhataṃcatumaggāñāṇenasacchi-kātabbaṃ

(nibbāna is termed supramundane and is to be realized by the knowledge of the four paths).^[20]

According to Theravāda Buddhist tradition, the transcendental state of nibbāna can be everywhere. However, it is excluded from the thirty-one planes of existence. It is said that it exists in any direction for enlightened individuals after their death.^[21] This is a critical point about the state of nibbāna, because it does not exist as a pre-exist quality in each individual enlightened being, but nibbāna comes to exist only after enlightened beings enter the state of nibbāna after death. And the state of nibbāna is different from the state of the thirtyone planes of existences that already exist before one comes to exist. In reality, nibbāna has not existed beforehand. This means that nibbāna has not occurred before enlightened beings attain enlightenment. Nibbāna does not exist as an empirical state, but as a transcendental state.^[22] Therefore, according to the Theravāda Buddhist view, it is difficult to point out the specific place of nibbāna as here and there. It is only possible to say that nibbāna can be everywhere for the enlightened beings after their death.

To clarify the above Pāli statement, its commentary (Parivāra aṭṭhakathā) states: Sucirampi ṭhatvā pana nibbānaṃ arahato gati khīṇāsavassa arahato anupādisesa-nibbānadhātu ekaṃsena gatīta attho–because nibbāna eternally exists as the transcendental state, it is confirmed as a transcendental place or deathless place for former enlightened beings, and it is also considered to be the transcendental element with the full extinction of existence (anupādisesanibbānadhātu).^[23] The transcendental place here means the place where danger and death no longer exist and a place that is not subject to the conditioned circumstances (saṅkhata) for all beings.

According to the perspective of Shwe Kyin Sayardaw, since those former enlightened beings exist in the state of nibbāna, the element of nibbāna (nibbānadhātu), goes beyond the categories of humans (manussa), celestial beings (deva), and heavenly beings (brahma). This is because they are no longer under the category of conventional humans, celestial beings, and heavenly beings. And they are also on longer counted as beings, since they are no more counted under the categories of signs or forms of empirical beings. Yet the existence of nibbāna is not considered to be emptiness (tuccha) and nothingness (abhāva), although their physical and mental phenomena absolute cease.^[24] In this context, Theravāda Buddhism does not mention the view of the Buddha field where the Buddhas and enlightened beings always live.

However, King Milinda was keen to know where was the Buddha, after his Mahāparinibbāna (great emancipation). Therefore, he asked Nāgasena, “Is there the Buddha?” “Yes, sire, there is the Buddha.” Nāgasena replied. “If you say no, is it possible to point out the Buddha and say that he is either here or there?”^[25] To his question, Nāgasena responded as follows:

Sire, the Blessed One (the Buddha) has attained final nibbāna in the element of nibbāna that has substrata remaining for future birth. It is not possible to point out to the Blessed One and say that he is either here or there. What do you think about this, sire? When the flame of great mass of fire has gone out, is it possible to point to that flame and say that it is either here or there?” (Indeed) it is not possible to point to the Blessed One who has come to end and say that he is either here or there. But, sire, it is possible to point to the Blessed One by means of the body of the Dhamma,^[26] for Dhamma, sire, was taught by the Blessed One.^[27]

The issue of the Buddha who entered Mahāparinibbāna (the great emancipation) is critical for Buddhism. Where is the Buddha after his death? It is practically said that he is nowhere as a being or an individual, but it is philosophically said that he is somewhere as an absolute peace. However, Theravādins do not hold that the Buddhas reside in the Buddha realm after their final nibbāna, representing the essence of Buddha or true body (dharmakāya), but they emphasize it in a different way. This means the mere essence of the Dhamma. Moreover, nibbāna has been described as Dhammādhātu (the element of dhamma) that can exist everywhere or in every direction. But Theravādins refuse to say that the true body of the Buddhas (Dhammakāya) exists in the thirty-one planes of existences.^[28]

There are four Nibbānapatisamyutta sutta of Udāna Pāli which describes what nibbāna is. They are very important description dealing with nibbāna.

1. Nibbānapatisaṃyutta sutta: There is, monks, that sphere wherein there is neither earth nor water nor fire nor air; there is neither sphere of infinite consciousness nor of nothingness nor of the sphere of neither-perception-nor non-perception; where is neither this world nor the world beyond nor both together, nor moon, nor sun; this I say is free from coming and going, from duration and decay; there is no beginning nor establishment, no result, no cause; this indeed is the end of suffering.^[29]

2. Nibbānapatisaṃyutta sutta: “Non-substantiality is indeed difficult to see. Truth certainly is not easily perceived. Craving is penetrated. Nothing of them exists for him who knows and sees (the four noble truths)”.^[30]

3. Nibbānapatisaṃyutta sutta: “There is, monks, a not-born, notbecome, not-made, not-compounded were not, no escape from the born, become, made, compounded would be known here.

But, monks, since there is a not-born, not-become, not-made, notcompounded, therefore an escape from the born, become, made, compounded is known”.^[31]

4. Nibbānapatisaṃyutta sutta: “For him who is attached, there is vacillation; for him who is not attached, there is no vacillation, there is calm, when there is calm, there is no delight; when there is no delight, there is no coming and going; when there is no coming and going, there is no disappearance and appearance, when there is no disappearance and appearance there is nothing here nor there between them; this indeed is the end of suffering”.^[32]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Abhidhammaṭṭhasaṅgaha Pāli, p. 113

[2]:

In the Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha Pāli, and the Abhidhamma texts, there are the knowledges of the four supramumdane paths. They are: (1) the realizing of the path of stream of winning (sotapattimagga), (2) the realizing of the path of once-return (sakadāgamimagga), (3), the realizing of the path of non-return (anāgamimagga), and (4) the realizing of the path of holiness (arahattamagga). See Nyanatiloka thera, Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, Sri Lanka, 1988. p. 20

[3]:

Ac-Ab, p. 258.

[4]:

Vism II, p. 139.

[5]:

The Path of Purification, Ñāṇamoli, p. 514-515

[6]:

Vism II, p. 139-140

[7]:

Vism, p. 515

[8]:

Vism, p. 517

[9]:

Ibid, p. 516

[10]:

The Path of Freedom, Vimuttimagga, tr. N. R. M. Ehara, Soma thera, and Kheminda, p. 272

[11]:

What the Buddha Taught, Walpola Rahula, p. 35-36

[12]:

Vibh-A, p. 79.

[13]:

BD, p. 86-87

[14]:

SA, p. 85

[15]:

The Questions of King Milinda: An Abridgement of th Milindapanha, p. 57.

[16]:

The Questions of King Milinda: An Abridgement of th Milindapanhā, p. 48.

[17]:

The Questions of King Milinda: An Abridgement of th Milindapanhā, p. 130-1.

[18]:

DN I, p. 213

[19]:

Long Discourses of the Buddha, p. 179-180

[20]:

Ac-Ab p. 258

[21]:

Gambhīrāgambhīra mahānibbhūta dīpanī, p. 140.

[22]:

Gambhīrāgambhīra mahānibbhūta dīpanī, p. 55

[23]:

Vin-A V, p. 163

[24]:

Gambhīrāgambhīra mahānibbhūta dīpanī, p. 48-55

[25]:

QM, p. 60-61

[26]:

The body of the Dhamma here does not mean that it is the essence of the Buddha’s body, but it directly refers to the essence of dhamma (nature of a thing or quality). Thus, Ven. Nagasena emphasized his statement with the word “for Dhamma”.

[27]:

QM, p. 60.

[28]:

Gambhīrāgambhīra mahānibbhūta dīpanī, p. 144

[29]:

Ud, p. 177

[30]:

Ibid

[31]:

Ud, p. 177

[32]:

ibid