The Buddha's Teaching

MN 38

"Dependent on eye and visible forms, eye-consciousness arises; the coincidence of the three is contact; with contact as condition, there arises what is felt as pleasant or as painful or as neither-painful-nor-pleasant. If, on experiencing the contact of pleasant feeling, one does not relish it or welcome it or accept it, and if no underlying tendency in one to lust for it any longer underlies it -- if, on experiencing the contact of painful feeling, one does not sorrow or lament or beat one's breast, weep and become distraught, and if no underlying tendency in one to resistance to it any longer underlies it -- if, on experiencing the contact of neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling, one understands, as it actually is, the arising, disappearance, gratification, dangerous inadequacy, and escape, in the case of that feeling, and if no underlying tendency in one to ignorance any longer underlies it -- then, indeed, that one shall make an end of suffering by abandoning the underlying tendency to lust for pleasant feeling, by eliminating the underlying tendency to resist painful feeling, and by abolishing the underlying tendency to ignore neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling: that is possible."

MN 148

"When lust, hate, and delusion are abandoned, a man does not choose for his own affliction or for others' affliction or for the affliction of both. In that way there comes to be Nibbana here and now, without delay, inviting inspection, onward-leading, and experienceable by the wise."

AN 3:55

"Actions done out of non-lust, non-hate, and non-delusion, done when lust, hate, and delusion have disappeared, are abandoned, cut off at the root, made like a palm stump, done away with, and are no more subject to future arising."

AN 3:33

"Formless states are more peaceful than states of form; cessation is more peaceful than formless states."[11]

Iti 73

"There is that (external) base where no earth (is), or water or fire or air or base consisting of infinity of space or base consisting of infinity of consciousness or base consisting of nothingness or base consisting of neither-perception-nor-non-perception or this world or the other world or moon or sun; and that I call neither a coming nor a going nor a staying nor a dying nor a reappearance; it has no basis, no evolution, no support; it is the end of suffering.

"The Unaffected is hard to see;
It is not easy to see Truth.
To know is to uncover craving;
To see is to have done with owning.

"There is an unborn, an un-brought-to-being, an unmade, an unformed. If there were not, there would be no escape described here for one who is born, brought to being, made, formed. But since there is an unborn, an un-brought-to-being, an unmade, an unformed, an escape is therefore described here for one who is born, brought to being, made, formed."

Ud 8:1-3

"There are two elements of Nibbana. What two? There is the element of Nibbana with result of past clinging still left, and the element of Nibbana without result of past clinging left. What is the element of Nibbana with result of past clinging still left? Here a bhikkhu is an arahant with taints exhausted, who has lived out the life, done what was to be done, laid down the burden, reached the highest goal, destroyed the fetters of being, and who is completely liberated through final knowledge. His five sense faculties remain, owing to the presence of which he still encounters the agreeable and disagreeable, still experiences the pleasant and painful. It is the exhaustion of lust, of hate, and of delusion in him that is called the element of Nibbana with result of past clinging still left. And what is the element of Nibbana without result of past clinging left? Here a bhikkhu is an arahant who has lived out the life ... and is completely liberated through final knowledge. All in him that is felt will, since he does not relish it, become cool here in this very life: this is called the element of Nibbana without result of past clinging left."

Iti 44

"That which is the exhaustion of lust, of hate, and of delusion, is called Nibbana."

SN 38:1

"Just as a flame blown by the wind's force,
Upasiva," said the Blessed One,
"Goes out, and designation applies to it no more,
So too the Silent Sage,
Being freed from the name-body,
Goes out, and designation applies to him no more."

"Then when he has thus gone out,
Does he exist no more?
Or is he made immortal for eternity?
So may it please the Sage to make this plain to me,
Because it is a state that he has understood."

"There is no measuring of one who has gone out,
Upasiva," said the Blessed One,
"And nothing of him
Whereby one could say aught of him;
For when all ideas have been abolished,
All ways of saying, too, have been abolished."

Sn 5:7