Nibbāna

What does “Nibbāna” mean?

The word has two main senses. The first comes from the verb nibbāti, “to be extinguished, to cool down”, like a fire going out. The second, used in the Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha, is ni (away from) + vāna (craving that weaves things together): “that which has departed from craving”.

In the Jambukhādaka Saṃyutta, the wanderer Jambukhādaka asks Venerable Sāriputta what Nibbāna is. Sāriputta replies: “The destruction of lust, the destruction of hatred, the destruction of delusion — this is called Nibbāna.”

Nibbāna in four aspects

The Visuddhimagga describes Nibbāna in four aspects, like the other ultimate realities:

• Characteristic — peace (santi): peace from all defilement and suffering.
• Function — deathlessness (accuta), or giving relief and comfort.
• Manifestation — signlessness: no shape or form to grasp; and freedom from proliferation (nippapañca).
• Proximate cause — none, because Nibbāna does not arise from conditions. This is where Nibbāna differs from the other three realities.

Conditioned and unconditioned

Everything we have ever experienced is conditioned: it has causes, arises, lasts a moment and ceases — happiness, the body, even a very peaceful mind in deep concentration.

The sutta quoted above goes on to say that if there were no unconditioned, there would be no escape from the conditioned. But because the unconditioned exists, an escape exists. So Nibbāna is not a “product” manufactured by practice. Practice is the cause of seeing Nibbāna, not the cause of Nibbāna coming into existence.

Two kinds of Nibbāna

The Itivuttaka and the Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha divide Nibbāna figuratively into two kinds. In its nature Nibbāna is one — peace. It is counted as two only from the side of the one who realises it.

• With residue remaining (sa-upādisesa) — all defilements extinguished, but the five aggregates produced by past kamma remain. On the day the Buddha awakened under the Bodhi tree, he still had a body and could still feel illness, but no defilement ever arose in his mind again.
• Without residue (anupādisesa) — when an arahant dies, the five aggregates cease with no new rebirth following, as at the Buddha's final passing (parinibbāna) at Kusinārā.

Three aspects of Nibbāna — three doors

The Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha says Nibbāna appears in three aspects, depending on which of the three characteristics is most prominent in the insight of the one who realises it — like one room with three doors:

• Emptiness (suññata) — empty of defilements and formations; appears to one who sees non-self clearly.
• Signlessness (animitta) — without the signs of formations; appears to one who sees impermanence clearly.
• Desirelessness (appaṇihita) — without any ground for craving; appears to one who sees suffering clearly.

The simile of the extinguished fire

In the Aggivacchagotta Sutta, the wanderer Vacchagotta asks where an arahant is reborn after death. The Buddha asks him in return: if a fire burning in front of him went out, and someone asked whether it had gone east, west, north or south, how would he answer? Vacchagotta replies that the question does not apply: the fire burned dependent on fuel, and when the fuel is used up and no more is added, it is simply called “extinguished”.

The arahant is the same. With no defilements as fuel for a new existence, asking whether he “is reborn”, “is not reborn”, “both” or “neither” does not fit the reality.

Who can know Nibbāna?

Nibbāna knows nothing (Lesson 2), but it can be known as an object. The consciousnesses that take Nibbāna directly as object are the 8 supramundane ones — the four paths and four fruitions — and also the consciousness that crosses from worldling to noble one (change-of-lineage, gotrabhū).

Noble ones can enter “fruition attainment” (phala-samāpatti), letting fruition consciousness continue with Nibbāna as object. Ordinary people can know Nibbāna only as a “story” or idea, which is a concept, not the direct realisation of Nibbāna.

The path to Nibbāna: the four noble persons

Nibbāna is first realised at the path of stream-entry, and then defilements are uprooted stage by stage until none remain, by way of the ten fetters (saṃyojana) that bind beings to the round of existence. (Compare the diagram of unwholesome consciousness in Lesson 5.)

“Nibbāna is the highest happiness” — yet there is no feeling

The Dhammapada says, “nibbānaṃ paramaṃ sukhaṃ” — Nibbāna is the highest happiness. In the Aṅguttara Nikāya, the monk Udāyī asks Venerable Sāriputta how Nibbāna can be happiness when nothing is felt there. Sāriputta answers: “That nothing is felt there — that itself is happiness.”

Ordinary happiness is a feeling that arises and ceases; it has to be topped up again and again, with a hidden fear that it will run out. The happiness of Nibbāna needs nothing added, like the relief of someone who has finally put down a heavy load — not the excitement of someone who has just got something new.

Common misunderstandings

• “Nibbāna is a city or place where arahants go to live.” — No. Nibbāna is a reality, not a realm. Every realm, even the Brahmā worlds, is conditioned.
• “Nibbāna is emptiness, annihilation, nothing at all.” — No. The Buddha said the unconditioned “exists”. The view that everything is simply cut off is annihilationism (uccheda-diṭṭhi), a kind of wrong view.
• “Nibbāna is the true, eternal self.” — No. “Sabbe dhammā anattā” — all phenomena, Nibbāna included, are non-self. The view of a permanent self is eternalism (sassata-diṭṭhi).
• “You have to die to reach Nibbāna.” — No. A living arahant has already realised Nibbāna (with residue remaining).
• “Nibbāna is deep sleep, or just switching off feeling.” — No. Even the attainment of cessation (nirodha-samāpatti), in which consciousness and mental factors temporarily cease, is not Nibbāna. Nibbāna is the extinction of defilements, realised by wisdom.
• “Nibbāna is remote and has nothing to do with daily life.” — Every time greed, hatred or delusion lessens, the mind cools in proportion. That is not yet Nibbāna, but it is the same direction.