BUDDHIST WAY OF EMANCIPATION
By Sayadaw U Panna Dipa
SAYADAW U PANNA DIPA
Aggamaha Saddhamma Jotika Dhaja
Dean, Faculty of Patipatti,
I T B M U, Yangon
1999
Nibbana is a Pali word which is generally interpreted as the extinction of craving for sensual pleasures. Many people are under the impression that they could find genuine lasting peace and happiness by providing themselves with sensual pleasures to gratify their senses. But this would be an endless task. Man’s desire never comes to an end. As the saying goes: “The more we get, the more we want”.
Therefore no man ever could fulfil the eternal thirst or craving of his senses until and unless the craving is wiped out of his mind. Man may work as hard as a slave until his last breath is taken but still his desire or craving will continue to take root in him, even though he is too old to make use of his faculties. The infallible method to quench his craving as taught by the Buddha is to calm down one’s senses instead of gratifying then. There are four ways of practice in Buddhism for overcoming craving.
They are:
- 1. to give alms or charity (Dana),
- 2. to keep to morality or to restrain one’s body and verbal actions (Sila).
- 3. to concentrate on any one of the forty objects (Samatha) and
- 4. to meditate on the actual nature of one’s own mind and body (Vipassana).
These can quench your cravings. The more you practise these four principles, the more you can reduce or decrease your thirst. For instance, by giving alms or charity, greed (Lobha) in your mind can be dispelled and by observing moral precepts, anger or hatred can be appeased, by concentrating on the supreme qualities of the Buddha or Loving-kindness (Metta). your mind will be cleansed and highly developed and also the hindrances (Nivarana) can be kept away and the mind thus becomes completely tranquillized.
By practising meditation, you can attain the insightful knowledge which can see things as they really are and then attain to the deliverance of Nibbana. Man must learn how to control his senses in order to follow these principles of the Dhamma through self-training, self-discipline and self-restraint. He must also learn to achieve contentment and detachment. Very few people have realized that the cause of suffering is due to their own craving and attachment towards various pleasurable things.
They are rarely aware of the fact of being subject to the inescapable nature of old age, disease and death. And they are not in a position to understand that one day they would have to depart from each one and every thing that they now hold as dear. The Buddhist Nibbana is quite different from the Hebrew Paradise or Christian Heaven or the Hindu Brahma or Salvation or so introduced by other religions. The Buddhist way of salvation or eternal bliss cannot be attained unless man purifies himself by becoming a perfect one or a Noble One (Ariya). The follower of other faiths believe that they can only find their salvation or liberation through the influence of power of God or Brahma by believing and praying to him.
Buddhists believe that there are certain heavenly abodes for good people who have done meritorious deeds to enjoy the sensual pleasure where there are also for lower miserable abodes for wicked people who have done evil deeds. According to Buddhisrn heaven is not a place where man can find eternal bliss, but just a temporary feeling of happiness. After sometime there will come an end to such happiness, and hell also does not mean that one is permanently doomed for eternal woe. When the force of one’s evil deeds is exhausted in hell, one will be destined again for better and higher abodes.
Even in the abode of blissful heaven, one cannot get rid of the suffering of old age, disease and death, for as long as he has cravings or sensual pleasures, he will continue to be subjected to the cycle of birth and death in Samsara. There is a great difference between the happiness one derives from sensual gratification and that which one gets from restraining one’s senses of craving. Here, the Buddha definitely taught that the highest form of genuine happiness or bliss in life is to be attained only by controlling ones senses and not by indulging in them freely.
Some religions say that beings attain immortality or the highest bliss after death, while others proclaim that there is no life after death. According to Buddhism both these views are unacceptable for if one’s potentiality is perfect enough, one can reach the highest peak of genuine bliss even in this life experiencing it by oneself. Nothing is utterly annihilated in the whole universe. Buddhists believe in the process of’ cause and effect. If there is attachment in a person as a cause, consequently he will be reborn from life to life so long as the process of either the good or bad way of his actions is continually produced by himself.
Man in the sensuous world will not he released from decay or old age, sickness, worries, sorrow, grief, pain etc., until and unless lie becomes a most saintly person or the Worthy One (Arahat). Even though an Arahat is liberated from mental pain, he can still suffer from his physical body since he is already composed of the changeable and breakable body as an effect from the cause of his past lives.
People in this world are for ever and ever struggling to find out peace and happiness by adopting various wrong ways. not knowing of the real path due to their own ignorance (Avijja) and craving (Tanha). It is very clear that according to Buddhism, no one can expect to attain real peace and genuine happiness by praying to God or Eternal Soul or Mighty Powerful Being and performing ceremonies. rites and rituals. But in order to attain this kind of final supreme bliss, one must be purified and good to oneself and others as well.
He has to cultivate himself by observing moral precepts and avoiding all evils, doing meritorious deeds and purifying his mind to its utmost to attain blissful peace or enlightenment. Nobody else can purify man just by praying to God or to the Buddha to wash away all his sins. Actually, man must work for that by himself.
Nibbana can never be explained completely and satisfactorily in ordinary words because languages are too shallow and inadequate to express or describe the real nature of Nibbana. However, Nibbana is generally translated as the Absolute Truth, Ultimate Reality, Supramundane Happiness, Ultimate Peaceful Bliss in our common words with the most applicable terms, Yet they are not able to convey the true connotation from the actual sense of the term. Only those who have actually experienced the stages of the Noble Ones can express their feelings or experience of bliss according to their degree of enlightenment.
Languages or words are created and used by the mass of human beings to express things and ideas as experienced by their senses. On this point, one’s expression is obviously different from others as the decrees of their knowledge are varied in nature due to their actions in the past as well as experiences in the present life (Kamma). For this reason. supramundane experience of Nibbana Bliss cannot be derived from such a category to conventional truth.
Words are of course a conventional or relative truth or symbols representing things and ideas known to us, but these symbols cannot convey exactly and fully the true nature of even ordinary things. Language is a combination of words expressed by human beings. So language is supposedly deceptive and misleading in the matter of understanding the Absolute Truth (Paramattha Sacca).
The Ultimate Reality or Absolute Truth can only be realized by the enlightened knowledge of insight not by ordinary naked eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. The Ultimate Reality or Absolute Truth .
The Ultimate Reality or Absolute Truth can only be realized by the enlightened knowledge of insight not by ordinary naked eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. The Ultimate Reality or Absolute Truth is eternally sublime or supreme in itself without any change in the sense of reality the truth as it is or as really as it is mentioned “Uttamo” most sublime, “Aviparito “unchangeability or immutability, “Sabbannuta nanassa gocaro”. it can be comprehensible only by all knowing insight knowledge of the Buddha.
Nevertheless, we cannot do without language. To understand Nibbana we have to use words as applicable and perfect a manner as possible. So, if Nibbana is to be expressed and explained in positive terms as the “Absolute Happiness”, it is all also likely that we may immediately grasp it as an idea generally associated with those terms which may be quite contrary to the actual meaning. For this reason, it is often referred to or expressed in various negative terms such as “Extinction of Thirst, Uncomposed, Unconditioned, Unborn, Uncreated, Unmade. etc. It is indeed the complete absence of desire or the cessation of that very thirst or craving (Thanakkayo), giving it up (Cago), renouncing it (Patinissaggo). emancipation (Mutti) and detachment Analayo) from it.
Referring to exhaustion of all conditioned things and giving up all defilements. Nibbana is thus expressed in negative terms. Therefore many have got the wrong notion that Nibbana is negative and expresses self-annihilation of self because there is no self to annihilate and there is also no nothingness in Nibbana because there is neither space nor time where and when Nibbana can be located.
Buddhism holds that final extinction of ignorance and craving is the way of escape from the rounds of life (Samsara), but the escape is not actually reached somewhere and it of course could not be reached like a union with Brahma or God which is to be attained only after this life. The final victory to be gained by the extinction of’ ignorance and craving in the Buddhist view is the victory which can be gained and enjoyed in this very life.
This is what is meant by the Buddhist ideal of the Worthiest One (Arahattaship). the noblest life of a man fulfilled to perfection by insight wisdom. This noblest life has been travelled along the Noble Eightfold Path and has broken all the fetters and cankers and won the final liberation or emancipation in its entirety.
This transcendental or supramundane wisdom (Adhipanna) can be obtained before the dissolution of the physical body and thus the Noble One or the Worthy One has actually experienced the most supreme Peace and Happiness of Nibbana by himself in this present life.
source www.nibbana.com
