The Meaning of Nirvana
Posted: Tuesday, November 25, 2008
by Pablo Antuna
What do we mean by Nirvana? This is a concept talked about a lot. Very often something is compared to Nirvana when it is positive and pleasurable. This is the popular idea of Nirvana. But what the Buddha really experience when he achieved this state of Nirvana? What is this that Buddhism seeks?
Nirvana is not a positive concept in an obvious way. If you think about the etymology of the word, it is quite negative. It means to blow out. Like to extinguish the flame of a candle. Nirvana presents a hard and cold image which, if looked without knowing the context in which it is conceived, we might think of it like something negative and something that we wouldn't want to achieve. It's really different to the goals of other religious traditions.
Buddhists often compare human personality to a flame. It is a fire that we fuel by all the Karma that we produce, all the actions that we perform to achieve a certain goal or to avoid a certain state. All that karma is like throwing logs on a great fire. And it burns constantly, changing from one moment to the next. This produces desire and suffering. Ultimately, Buddhists consider that all is suffering.
What Buddhists ultimately seek is to extinguish that flame. Nirvana is simply the extinction of that fire. We no longer have to suffer in the cycle of deaths and rebirths known as Samsara. This is a basic definition of Nirvana that I can give. It's simly the extinction of the suffering that this life (or lives) produce.
To learn more about Buddhist teachings and beliefs, you might be interested in my FREE E-EBOOK "Buddhism for the Non-Buddhist Layman".
You will also find many free articles about Buddhist teachings, beliefs and practices in my site:
Buddhism Through Buddhist Eyes.
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