NIBBANA FOR EVERYONE
A Truth Message from Suan Mokkh
by
Buddhadasa Bhikkhu
(adapted and translated by Santikaro Bhikkhu)
For more information:
Dhammadana Foundation
c/o Suan Mokh
Chaiya
Surat Thani 84110
Thailand
First electronic edition: September 1996
Transcribed directly from disks provided by Santikaro Bhikkhu
Formatting & Proofreading: Scott Oser <oser@hep.uchicago.edu>
This electronic edition is offered
FOR FREE DISTRIBUTION ONLY
by arrangement with the Dhammadana Foundation.
This text is a gift of Dhamma. You may print this file for your
personal use, and you may make and distribute unaltered copies
of this file, provided that you charge no fees of any kind for
its distribution. Otherwise, all rights reserved.
* * * * * * * *
When you hear the words "nibbana for everyone," many of you
will shake your heads. You'll think that I'm trying to "dye cats for
sale." ["Dyeing cats for sale" is a Thai expression similar to "window
dressing": to dress up something shabby and inferior in order to trick
the customer. All notes are added by the translator.] Maybe you don't
have any interest in the subject. This only happens because you
understand the meaning of such words too narrowly and out of line with
the truth.
In the schools children are taught that nibbana is the death
of an Arahant. The ordinary man in the street has been taught that
it's a special city empty of pain and chock full of the happiness of
fulfilled wishes, supposedly reached after death by those who store up
perfections ("parami") over tens of thousands of births. Modern social
activists see it as an obstruction to progress that we shouldn't get
involved with or even discuss. Students in general consider it a
matter for devout old folks at the temple with nothing of relevance
for them. Young men and women think it's bland and unexciting, awful
and frightening. All the candidates for the monkhood merely mouth,
"May I go forth in order to awaken to nibanna". The old monks say
nibbana can't happen anymore in this day and age, and that an Arahant
cannot exist anymore either. So finally, nibbana has become a secret
that no one cares about. They've turned it into something barren and
silent, buried away in the scriptures, to be paid occasional service
in sermons while no one really knows what it is.
In fact, without this business of nibbana, Buddhism would be
as good as dead. When nobody is interested in nibbana, then nobody is
genuinely interested in Buddhism. When nothing about nibbana interests
us, then we can't get any benefits at all from Buddhism. I feel that
it's about time for us to get interested and bring about the highest
benefit, as fits the words, "Nibbana is the Supreme Thing"--namely,
the highest goal of living things, which is involved with our
daily life at all times.
NIBBANA HAS NOTHING IN THE LEAST TO DO WITH DEATH. The word
"nibbana" means "cool." Back when it was just an ordinary word which
people used in their homes it also meant "cool." When it is used as Dhamma
language, in a religious context, it still means "cool," but refers to
cool from the fires of defilement (kilesa), while in the common
people's usage it means cool from physical fires.
Throughout the Pali scriptures, the word "nibbana" is never used
in the sense of death. When death is discussed, the word "marana" is
used. Otherwise, the word "parinibbana" is used, such as when the Buddha
said, "The parinibbana will occur three months from now.
NIBBANA IS ONE OF THE DHATUS [natural conditions]. It is
the coolness when the defilements are ended. Two types of this
condition can be distinguished. In the first, the defilements are
exhausted and cooled, but the sensory system, the organs that receive
sensory stimuli, aren't yet cool. In the second, this sensory system
is also cooled. A white hot charcoal illustrates the difference.
When it first goes out, it is still too hot to be handled. We must
wait a while longer until it is thoroughly cool and can be touched.
Through the explanations of later generations the meaning of "nibbana"
has changed to "death." Such changes and lapses are commonplace in
this world, so nowadays we Thais use this distorted meaning. I myself
was taught this way when I was a child. When I first became a
bhikkhu, I still understood it this way, and told my friends and
students to understand it likewise. Only when I could study the
original Pali texts did I discover that nibbana was a whole other
matter than death. Instead, it's a kind of life that knows no death.
Nibbana is the thing which sustains life, thus preventing death. It
itself can never die, although the body must die eventually.
As things are, other Indian religions contemporary with
Buddhism also used the word "nibbana". In the Pali texts there's a
passage where the leader of another sect (from Southern India, around
the Godavari River) sent sixteen students to ask the Lord Buddha about
his version of nibbana. Their own understanding of nibbana may just as
well have meant "death." This story is well-known (in Theravada
countries) under the name Solasapanha, the "Sixteen Questions" at
the end of the Sutta-nipata [see the Parayanavagga in the
Khuddakanikaya (Minor Anthologies) of the Pali Canon]. The point here
is that the issue of nibbana was the highest concern of the Indian
religions contemporary with Buddhism. There must have been at least
one group that interpreted it as "death" and spread its teaching in
the vicinity of Suvarnabhumi ("The Golden Land," the ancient name of
Siam) before Buddhism arrived here, leaving it behind as the general
understanding of the common folk (similarly to what happened with atta
(self) or atman (soul)). Now we had better return to our examination
of nibbana as taught by Buddhism.
When Prince Siddartha first took up the homeless spiritual
life, he wandered in search of the nibbana which is the total
quenching of all dukkha (rather than death). From the famous teachers
of India at that time, he learned nothing higher than
nevasannanasannayatana (the experience of neither perception nor
non-perception), a degree of mental tranquility so deep that we cannot
describe it either as "death" nor as "non-death." He couldn't accept
that as the supreme nibbana. So he went off to search on his own
until he discovered the nibbana which is the coolness at the final end
of defilement. He called it "THE END OF DUKKHA," meaning the
exhaustion of all the heat produced by defilement. However much the
defilements are exhausted, there's that much coolness, until there is
perfect coolness due to the defilements being finished completely. In
short, to the degree that which defilements are ended, there will be
that much coolness or nibbana. That is, NIBBANA IS THE COOLNESS WHICH
RESULTS FROM THE QUENCHING OF DEFILEMENT, whether they quench on their
own or someone quenches them. Whenever the defilements are quenched,
then there is the thing called "nibbana," always with the same
meaning--"coolness."
Next, notice that the defilements are concocted things
(sankharadhammas), that arise and cease. As it says in the Pali,
Yankinci samudayadhammaam sabbantam nirodhadhammam.
(Whatever things are originated, all those will cease.)
Any defilements which have arisen cease when their causes and
conditions are finished. Although it may be a temporary quenching,
merely a temporary coolness, it still means nibbana, even if only
temporarily. Thus there's a temporary nibbana for those who still
have some defilements they can't avoid. This indeed is the temporary
nibbana that sustains the lives of beings who are still hanging onto
defilement. Anyone can see that if the defilements exist night and day
without any pause or rest, no life can endure it. If it didn't die, it
would go crazy and then die in the end. You ought to consider carefully
the fact that life can survive only because there are periods when
the defilements don't roast it, which, in fact, outnumber the times when
the defilements blaze.
These periodic nibbanas sustain life for all of us, without
exception, not even animals, who have their levels of nibbana, too. We
are able to survive because this kind of nibbana nurtures us, until it
becomes the most ordinary habit of life, or of the mind. Whenever
there is freedom from defilement, then there is the value and meaning
of nibbana. This must occur often enough for living things to survive.
That we have some time to relax both bodily and mentally gives us the
freshness and vitality needed to live.
Why don't we understand and feel thankful for this kind of
nibbana a little? We're lucky that the instincts can manage by
themselves. See, things with minds naturally search for periods that
are free from defilement or thirst. If there is unremitting thirst,
life must die. Thus, infants know how to suck the breast and mosquitos
know how to buzz around sucking blood to sustain their lives until
they are slapped to death. Our instincts have this virtue built in:
they search for periods of time sufficiently free from defilement or
free from thirst to maintain life. Whenever there is freedom and
voidness there is always this little nibbana, until we know how to
make it into the permanent or perfect nibbana of the Arahant. It isn't
death, but rather is deathlessness, in particular, spiritual
deathlessness. If anyone sees this fact, they'll personally
experience that we can survive only through this kind of nibbana. We
don't survive just because of that rice and food which people are so
infatuated about. We will realize that everybody must have this thing
called "nibbana" and must depend on it as their lives' sustenance. So
who can object to us talking about "nibbana for everyone."?
In order to better understand the meaning of the word
"nibbana," we ought to look at it from the perspective of linguistics.
A material sense of the word is found in the words "pajjotasseva
nibbanam" This "nibbana" refers to the ordinary quenching of fire.
When the rice porridge is still hot, the cook yells out from the
kitchen, "wait a moment, let it nibbana a bit." When the goldsmith
melts down gold and pours it into a mold, he sprinkles water on it to
cool it down. The word used in Pali here is "nibbapeyya", to first make
it nibbana or cool before working it into some shape or form.
Even the wild animals which are captured from the jungle and
made tame like a pussycat are said to have been "made nibbana."
Sensual pleasures cool down foolish people in a way appropriate for
them. The unwavering concentrations on material forms (rupajhanas)
bring a coolness free from the fire of sensuality. Although temporary,
these (the jhanas) are certain levels of nibbana. The "experience of
nothingness" (Akincannayatana) and the other arupajhanas bring a
coolness free from the fire that arises out of attractive material
things. Nibbana due to the ending of all defilements brings the final
coolness which is the ultimate in all respects.
Certain groups of teachers have come up with the word
"sivamokkhamahanibbana," which they explain as some kind of town or
city. Although no one can make any sense of it, they keep it around as
something to bow to when this strange word is exclaimed from the
pulpits of your run of the mill temples.
There is also the word "nibbuti", which means an ethical level
of nibbana. It refers to a cool heart or cool life such as that which
impressed a young woman on seeing Prince Siddhartha. She said,
"Whosever son this gentleman is, his mother and father are nibbuta
(that is, cool); whosever husband he is, that woman is nibbuta (once
again, cool)." These have the meaning of nibbana, too. Nowadays the
monks in Thailand chant the benefits of ethical behavior with "silena
nibbutim yanti," which means nibbuti is achieved through sila
(ethics). This comes after the lesser benefits of sila, such as
acquisition of wealth and getting to sugati (happy births). The
purpose here is for nibbana to have a place in ordinary daily life.
That coolness of heart and peace of mind which everyone desires
is the meaning of nibbana. But people misunderstand it and aim only
for sex, which is hot stuff. So they get a deceptive nibbana. People
have clung to such an interpretation since, or even before, the
Buddha's time, such as can be found among the sixty-two wrong views
listed in the Brahmajala Sutta.
Look for a moment. What is the history and basic meaning of the
word "nibbana"? In all cases it points to coolness of heart and mind,
according to the higher or lower feelings of each person. The
essential meaning, however, is always in the nurturing and sustaining
of life. It lessens the time when fires are burning the mind just
enough for us to survive, and eventually develops to the highest level
which absolutely quenches all fires. The highest degree of realization
in Buddhism, according to the Buddha, is the end of lust, the end of
hatred, and the end of delusion, which is the final quenching of all
fires and the coolest cool which life can be.
NIBBANA IS NOT THE MIND, BUT IS SOMETHING WHICH THE MIND CAN
EXPERIENCE, or, as the Buddha put it, is a certain ayatana which
wisdom can experience. Forms, sounds, odors, flavors, and tactile
sensations are material or physical ayatana, things the body can
experience. Akasanancayatana (the experience of endless space) up to
and including nevasannanasannayatana are mental ayatana for the mind
to experience. Then, nibbana is a spiritual ayatana for mindfulness
and wisdom to contact or realize. It should be considered something
which Nature has provided for human beings at the highest level. We
should know it so that nibbana and our lives are not in vain. Every
one of us has mindfulness and wisdom in order to touch nibbana. Don't
let it go to waste!
THE NIBBANA-ELEMENT EXISTS NATURALLY so that there will be
realization of nibbana, like a precious medicine which ends all
dukkha. There is the dukkha or disease which ordinary medicines cannot
cure, namely, the disease of defilement which must be cured by the
extinction of defilements, through which this nibbana-dhatu is
realized. This highest spiritual illness lies deeply hidden in us and
torments us secretly. Anyone who can quench it has come to the
pinnacle of being human.
THE WORDS "THERE IS NO NIBBANA" ARE MORE WRONG THAN WRONG
because the nibbana-element exists naturally everywhere always, only
nobody is interested enough to find it. The Lord Buddha discovered and
revealed it to us through his enormous compassion, but we cut the
story short thinking that in this era there is no nibbana anymore,
when we should instead say that nobody understands or is interested in
it. By merely becoming proper followers of the Buddha, nibbana will
appear. It is already waiting for people to find it.
WE CANNOT CREATE NIBBANA because it is beyond all causes and
conditions, but we can create the conditions for realizing nibbana,
namely, all actions which lead to the abandonment of the defilements.
We won't speak as others do by saying "doing good is a condition for
nibbana. Condition (paccaya) implies causal necessity, but there is
nothing which has such power over nibbana. The right words are "it is
a condition for realizing nibbana," which can be done in any age or
period. Old folks like the words "Stairway to Nibbana" because they
think it is a place or city. That's what they have been taught.
Still, it is an acceptable enough phrase, meaning simply "condition
for the realization of nibbana."
THERE ARE MANY SYNONYMS OF NIBBANA, dozens of them--for
example, the Deathless, Permanence, Peace, Safety, Health,
Diseaselessness, Freedom, Emancipation, Shelter, Refuge, Immunity,
Island (for those fallen into water), Highest Benefit, Supreme Joy,
the Other Shore, that which should be reached eventually, and the End
of Concocting. All of these are thoroughly cool, because there aren't
any fires to make them hot. Peaceful coolness is their meaning or
value--unfortunately it is a value too subtle to interest people who
are still overly enveloped in defilements. When brushing aside the
defilements for the first time, you will be delighted by nibbana more
than anything else. This is certain, and possible for everyone. May we
take the word "cool" as the highest value.
THE EXPRESSION WHICH BEST CONVEYS THE MEANING OF NIBBANA IS
"THE END OF DUKKHA." Although the Buddha used this term, it's of no
interest for those people who don't feel that they have any dukkha.
They don't feel they have dukkha: they want the things they want and
there isn't any dukkha to quench. And so they don't care about
quenching dukkha or about the end of dukkha. Even a large number of
the many foreigners who come to Suan Mokkh have that feeling. But once
we tell them there is a new life, or quenching of thirst, or life which
is beyond positive and negative, they become extremely interested.
This is the difficulty of language, which we must use to get people
interested in nibbana. For each person, there must be one translation
of the word "nibbana" especially for that person. This is not a small
difficulty. Yet deep down, without being conscious of it or having any
intention, everyone wants nibbana purely through the power of instinct.
THE STUDY OF NIBBANA IN DAILY LIFE is possible in order to better
understand and have greater interest in nibbana's meaning. When seeing
a fire go out or something hot cooling down, look for the meaning of
nibbana. When bathing or drinking ice water, when a breeze blows or
rain falls, take notice of the meaning of nibbana. When a fever
subsides, a swelling goes down, or a headache goes away, recognize the
meaning of nibbana as being found in those things. When perspiring,
sleeping comfortably, or eating one's fill, see the meaning of
nibbana. When seeing an animal with all its fierceness and danger
tamed out, see the meaning of nibbana. All of these are lessons to
help us understand the nature of nibbana in every moment. The mind
will regularly incline towards contentment with nibbana and this helps
the mind to flow more easily along the path of nibbana.
Whenever finding coolness in your experience, mark that
coolness firmly in your heart, and breathe out and in. Breathing in is
cool, breathing out is cool. In cool, out cool--do this for a little
while. This is an excellent lesson which will help you to become a
Nibbanakamo (Lover of Nibbana) more quickly. The instincts will develop
in an enlightened (bodhi) way more than if you don't practice like
this. Natural nibbana--the unconscious quenching of defilement--will
occur more often and easily. This is the best way for the mind to help
nature.
In conclusion, nibbana is not death. It is the coolness and
deathlessness which is full of life. In the Pali scriptures, the word
"nibbana" is never used regarding death. Nibbana is a natural element
always ready to make contact with the mind in the sense of being one
kind of ayatana (sensible thing). If there were no nibbana, Buddhism
would have no meaning. The genuine kind of nibbana, different from the
nibbana of other sects, was discovered by the Buddha. Natural nibbana
can happen simply because the defilements arise and end naturally
because they are just another kind of concocted nature. Every time the
defilements don't appear, nibbana is manifested to the mind. This kind of
nibbana nourishes the lives of living things so they survive and don't
go crazy. At least, it lets us sleep at night. Nibbana isn't any kind
of special city anywhere. It is in the mind which is now void of
besieging defilements. For the morality of ordinary people at home,
its name is "nibbuti." Nibbana isn't the mind, but it appears to the
mind as a certain ayatana. We can experience nibbana here and now by
breathing in cool and breathing out cool. It is the automatic
quenching of heat, of thirst, of dukkha in ordinary life, without our
being conscious of it. It is the eternal nourishment and sustenance
of life.
I hope that you all will begin to know that "nibbana for
everyone" isn't just "dyeing cats for sale," but is the genuine cat for
catching rats--that is, dukkha and anxiety--according to the
mindfulness and wisdom of each person!
* * *
[end]