Talk:Nirvana
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Kukkurovaca vs. Mysterious Stranger
There is some confusion about Nirvana as a goal or as a soteriological goal. Soteriology is the Christian doctrine of salvation (according to the OED) Calling it a goal is not quite accurate since one needs to give up all striving or even the idea of attaining it in order to reach it (an irony, I know).
- Soteriology in the 20th century has become dispersed throughout religious studies, and simply means "having to do with salvation or the study of salvation." It is routinely used in Buddhist studies. However, it is not essential that it be used here.
- On the other hand, I'm nervous about "Nirvana...is the fruit or culmination of enlightenment." I don't think it's clear that enlightenment is a process of which nirvana is the end; many would say "enlightenment" and mean "nirvana", and vice versa. Certainly "fruit" seems unnecessarily flowery language.
I agree they are often used interchangably. Fruit can be changed to something more suitable. The essential meaning I was going for was that nirvana is something that can be experienced once things are seen or understood as they really are (a.k.a. enlightenment).
- I gave it another shot; tell me what you think. Also, are you the "Indian physics" person? Because I'm worried that "physics" erroneously implies that Indian philosophy was anything like Aristotelian philosophy or even, god forbid, modern science. Besides which, the concept of fire had a much more lively life as a rhetorical device in Indian philosophy than as a physical concept.
Thank you Kukkurovaca, you said it better than I could have. I am new to Wikipedia and working on getting an identity. I am not the Indian physics person, and I fully support any changes you will make about this part of the article.
Usedbook vs. Smack?
What does a continuity of void processes mean?
- I think my paragraph about the frogs and tadpoles should help you understand that :p Smack
I had to remove the following for too many reasons. I was hesitant at first for this may cause conflict between myself and Smack. There are many descriptions and explanations about Unbinding (Nirvana) in the scriptures. To generalize that all teachers in such a manner teach the uselessness of their students questioning Nirvana is disturbing. You may ask your teacher anything about Nirvana. Although I agree 100% with his intent, what Smack is attempting to convey with his article is extremely obscure, especially to those unfamiliar with the subject wishing to learn. Lastly, the dangerous paraphrasing is always avoided in religious articles. You should bring reference. I've read a similar simile expounded from Sariputta or the Milinda Debate but I'm unsure. In what sutra did Gautama say this? The difficulty with labeling Buddhism a philosophy is having Gautama being quoted vaguely like Plato enthusiasts while we have a canon to consider like a religion. Usedbook 17:00 20 May 2003 (UTC)
"In fact, the Buddha and other teachers have left us with much fewer descriptions of nirvana than explanations of why it cannot be described. One such explanation is thus: ordinary people are like tadpoles, and those who have achieved nirvana are like frogs; the dry land represents nirvana. The tadpoles may ask the frog, "Does the dry land have fish?" "Is the air anything like water?" "Can you swim on dry land?" The frog's answer to all of these questions will be negative or indeterminate, perhaps leading the tadpoles to wonder whether dry land exists at all. Similarly, Buddhist teachers have said, it is useless for common people to ask questions about nirvana."
Deletions
I removed "Often considered ineffable, Nirvana may be denoted as a continuity of void processes. " as it is confusing and possibly meaningless, at least without considerable elaboration.
Also killed "However, when teaching his own disciples, the Buddha used nibbana more as an image of freedom. Apparently, all Indians at the time saw burning fire as agitated, dependent, and trapped, both clinging and being stuck to its fuel as it burned. To ignite a fire, one had to "seize" it. When fire let go of its fuel, it was "freed," released from its agitation, dependence, and entrapment -- calm and unconfined. "--There's no point in the history of Indian philosophy about which one could get away with a statement like "Apparently, all Indians at the time x." Nor am I at all sure this was even a particularly common view; fire is pretty well revered in Indian thought, and metaphorically in the realm of philosophy, logic, and theological debate it usually stood in not for entrapment or agitation but for motion and power.
I also deleted the attribution of one quote to Suttinapatti, as that looks entirely wrong (Sutta Nipāta, perhaps?) to my eye, and a quick google turned up no references to anything of that name.
कुक्कुरोवाच 22:44, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Refugees from Buddhism main page
I trimmed the following from the Buddhism main page. Someone may want to try to work it in at Nirvana, though I'd want to see it explained historically and contextually, rather than simply declared like this. Which version of Nirvana, discussed where, is being called on here? That sort of thing.कुक्कुरोवाच 17:22, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
"Nirvana is a supramundane state which is unconditioned, unmade, unborn, unfabricated and results from unbinding from or extinguishing all that was conditioned, born, made, or fabricated; Nirvana can be thought of as a state of ultimate peace or reality in which all duality in the universe is resolved."
Organizing Afterlife Articles
I would like to organize the articles that deal with an otherworld as a real existence. I propose that Afterlife would be the best hub for such articles. Eschatology and Underworld are other possibilities, but I don't think they work as well as Afterlife. Any thoughts on such a project? Please come to Talk:Afterlife to discuss. Tom (hawstom) 14:46, 6 May 2004 (UTC)
- Nirvana is so not an afterlife. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 22:28, May 6, 2004 (UTC)
- Can you explain? Is Nirvana then a totally worldy concept, rather than an "otherworld"-ly one? Tom (hawstom) 17:17, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
- Well, properly speaking, Nirvana can't be defined; Buddhist scripture identifies the condition of the enlightened as indescribable. But speaking conventionally, one can make generalizations. Those following Nagarjuna claim that there is no distinction between samsara and nirvana; this is not precisely the same as saying that Nirvana is "worldly" in the sense of being vulgar or secular, but it is worldly in the sense that, under such an analysis, Nirvana is precisely the correct way of experiencing the world. More traditionally, however, nirvana would have to be defined as nonworldly, neither belonging to this world nor to any other. In neither case is it an "afterlife" because there is no one to live it, no being engaged in it. The same problem would hold for discussing enlightenment in Advaita Vedanta, though this is not to say that the two forms of enlightenment are in agreement. ::grin:: -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 17:42, May 7, 2004 (UTC)
- Both Underworld and Afterlife articles would be great, Tom. But concerning Nirvana, as Kukku says, Nirvana is not to do with afterlife. Practitioners 'arrive' at Nirvana before death. According to certain tantric traditions, death can be used as an opportunity to 'arrive' at Nirvana, but this is not relavant to ideas of underworld etc. You may be more interested in Bardo (the state between lives), which is a late Indian buddhist development. As Kukku says,
- In Nagarjuna's MMK XXV:19, he says
- There is not the slightest difference
- Between Samsara and Nirvana
- In Nagarjuna's MMK XXV:19, he says
- If you wish to understand Nirvana, it would be a good idea to understand the non-affirming negative used in Indian logic (Dignaga) as a basis of what Kukku is expressing. This form of negative is one that does not imply something else in its negation.
- For instance, if you were to ask me what color my coffee cup was, and I were to say "Not yellow", we normally assume that this would imply that the coffee cup was another color. However, if I were to ask you if your mind was yellow, and you were to reply "No, not yellow", then it does not necessarily imply that it actually had a color (just not yellow). So, when we ask about Nirvana "Is it worldly, is it non-worldly?", the answer may be "Not worldly, not non-worldly" - this does not mean that we are asserting a third state of being for things, but that this form of identification is merely not applicable. (20040302 09:33, 8 May 2004 (UTC))
Great. That helps a lot. I agree then that Nirvana wouldn't belong under the afterlife heading. Tom (hawstom) 02:37, 9 May 2004 (UTC)
Regarding my recent revert of Usedbook
I reverted several changes by User:Usedbook for a couple reasons. First, Nirvana does not literally mean "unbinding". "transcendent and singularly ineffable freedom" is (a) perhaps a little flowery for an encyclopedia and (b) ungrammatical (sentence fragment). I would be opent to changing "culmination" to "goal" with some other restructuring, however.
Nirvana does not connote an indescribable reality etymologically; it is taken to refer to or depict one, but not on the etymological level.
If part of the article is a misunderstanding, we probably shouldn't include it at all. However, it's not clear to me which part is supposed to be a misunderstanding why.
Nirvana's often-asseted ineffability, while valid for inclusion in this article, belongs nowhere near the etymology section. Also, your edits sound like they reflect the teachings of some particular school, in which case they can be included under a special section devoted to that school's interpretations, but I can't do it for you if I don't know what school that is. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 16:28, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)