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The following article is about the term Nirvana in the context of Buddhism. See Nirvana (disambiguation) for other meanings.
In Buddhism, nirvāṇa (from the Sanskrit -- Pali: Nibbāna -- Chinese: Nie4 Pan2 (涅槃)), literally "extinction" or "extinguishing", is the culmination of the Buddhist pursuit of liberation. Siddartha Gautama, the Buddha, described Buddhism as a raft which, after floating across a river, will enable the passenger to reach nirvana. Hinduism also uses nirvana as a synonym to its ideas of moksha, and it is spoken of in several Hindu tantric texts as well as the Bhagavad Gita. The Hindu and Buddhist concepts of nirvana should not be regarded as equivalent.
Etymologically, nirvana connotes an extinguishing or "blowing out" of a fire or candle flame, and in the Buddhist context carries the further connotations of stilling, cooling, and peace. In nirvana, all greed/craving, aversion/hate, delusion/ignorance, pride and jelousy as well as limited and relative ego-centered consciousness are extinguished.
As a negation of (i.e., the whole phenomenal world), nirvana is impossible to define directly; it can only be experienced or realized. One may not even be able to say this, since saying this implies the existence of an experiencing subject--which in fact would not persist after full nirvāṇa. While some of the side-effects of nirvana can be identified, a definition of nirvāṇa can only be approximated by what it is not. It is not the clinging existence with which man is understood to be afflicted. It is not any sort of becoming. It has no origin or end. It is not made or fabricated. It has no dualities, so that it cannot be described in words. It has no parts that may be distinguished one from another. It is not a subjective state of consciousness. It is not conditioned on or by anything else.
Calling "nirvana" the opposite of samsara may not be doctrinally accurate since even in early Buddhism and by the time of Nāgārjuna, there are teachings of the identity of nirvana and samsara. However, even here it is assumed that the natural man suffers from at the very least a confusion regarding the nature of samsara.
We can also say that, given the vital importance of the idea of anatta (Pāli; Sanskrit: Anātman), which negates not merely the grasping mind but also any concept of essential substance or permanent self, it is clear that nirvāṇa is not to be understood as a union with monistic ideal. Since there is essentially no self and no not-self, there is nothing to unite, instead it is an experience of non-separation.
It should also be noted that the Buddha discouraged certain lines of speculation, including speculation into the state of an enlightened being after death, on the grounds that these were not useful for pursuing enlightenment; thus definitions of nirvāṇa might be said to be doctrinally unimportant.
1 Nirvana in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra
However, in certain Mahayana teachings of the Buddha, Nirvana is said to be the perfection of the True Self, and in the " Mahayana Mahaparinirvana SutraThe Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra purports to be the Buddha's final Mahayana sutra, delivered on the last day of his earthly life. The text in its original Sanskrit form has survived only in a number of fragmentary pages, but does exist chiefly in at lea" in particular, as well as in a number of other important Mahayana sutras, Nirvana is seen as the state which constitutes the consummation of that which is "Eternal, Self, Bliss, and Pure". Nirvana thus becomes equivalent to the ineffable and deathless nature of the Buddha himself - a mystery which no words can adequately reach and which can only be fully known by an Awakened Being directly.
According to Mahayana teachings, the being who has reached Nirvana is not blotted out or extinguished: there is the extinction of the impermanent and suffering-prone "worldly self" or ego, but not of the immortal "supramundane Self" of the inner Buddha. The Buddha states in the "Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra" (Tibetan version): "Nirvana is deathless ... Those who have passed into Nirvana are deathless. I say that anybody who is endowed with careful assiduity is not compounded and, even though they involve themselves in compounded things, they do not age, they do not die, they do not perish."
