6.2. Buddhist Terms: Nibbāna

[Full title: Distinctive Issues of the Five Nikāyas and some Important Buddhist Terms Relating the Study; (2): Nibbāna]

The term nibbāna (Skt, nirvāna) has been used since the Vedic period. According to T.W. Rhys Davids and Stede (1993), the main reference of the word nibbāna is to the root vṛ ‘to cover’, and not to vā ‘to blow’ as often taken.

They demonstrate four meanings of nibbāna; that is,

(i) going out of a lamp or fire (popular meaning);
(ii) heath, the sense of bodily well-being (probably, at first, the passing away of feverishness, restlessness;
(iii) the dying out in the heart of the threefold fire of lust (rāga), ill will (dosa), and delusion (moha); and
(iv) the sense of spiritual well-being, of security, emancipation, victory and peace, salvation, bliss (Pali-English Dictionar: 362).

The word nibbāna, in Buddhism, is commonly assumed to refer to the state ending cyclic existence in the round of births (saṃsāra). Thus, Nibbāna is the solution of saṃsāra. It is described as the end or absence of undesirable things, such as suffering (dukkha).

A comprehensive look at the notion, the Buddhist account is said to have two kinds of nibbāna:

(i) nibbāna with remainder (sa-upadhisesa-nibbāna); and
(ii) nibbāna without remainder (anupādisesa-nibbāna) or final nibbāna (parinibbāna).

The former is attained through the destruction or the extinction of the defilements (āsava), while the later is characterized by bringing to a halt for all time the dynamic activity of the psycho-physical factors, the saṃsāra that composes the human individual. On the other hand, anupādisesa-nibbāna ‘remainder’ occurs at death of an Arahant at which point rebirth ceases and personal existence comes to the end. Thus, an Arahant in this later condition is free from the effects of kamma ‘action’ while the Arahant in the former condition is not, although no more new kamma will be more produced (see Dictionary of Buddhism by Damien Keow: 195). There are various kinds of nibbāna which are mentioned in several Suttas in the Five Nikāyas, such as Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 103, 105, 106; 107.

Nibbāna is the ultimate reality which cannot be described. It is “profound, hard to see and hard to understand, peaceful and sublime, unattainable by mere reasoning” and can only be implied by partly equivalent negative words such as ‘unborn’, ‘unageing’, ‘unailing’, ‘deathless’, ‘sorrowless’, ‘undefiled’ supreme security from bondage (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 26.18-9). The preeminent reality of nibbāna is affirmably declared by the Buddha as the supreme foundation of truth, which has an undeceptive nature (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 140.26). Such supreme noble truth can be experienced only by the wise who has destroyed all lust, hate, and ignorance and uprooted all taints in his own mind and could abide in the depths of meditation (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 64.9; 75.24).