Nibbāna the Secret Treasure of the Buddhas—Part 1

https://db.tt/cwMYGs9f

Rebirth: Context of the Buddha’s Teaching

Some notes and links on the subjects discussed in the video:

Sorry I Annoyed You with my Compassion

I have been talking a lot about Nibbāna for some time now. And I realized last night that I have said quite a bit about what Nibbāna is, but not much about how to realize it.

And I also finally realize why certain people may misperceive my motives and react negatively for no apparent reason. We’ll get to that presently.

Nibbāna 28: Attaining Insight

So the Buddha’s teaching inspires us to develop equanimity, turning away from the world of manifestation, impermanence and suffering by regarding it as a disease, an affliction. And he advises us to turn towards amataṃ, the Deathless, Nibbāna. This is the essence of meditation. Any effort we can invest in this endeavor is beneficial for us. Even if we can’t realize Nibbāna in this life, we can easily destroy the five lower fetters:

Nibbāna 27: Destroying the Taints

Now how does the Stream-entrant attain these four factors: confirmed confidence in the Buddha, Dhamma and Saṅgha, and virtue? Let’s expand the context of the quote given at the beginning:

“[A well-taught noble disciple] sees those states of feeling, perception, fabrications and consciousness as impermanent, as suffering, as a disease, as a tumor, as a barb, as a calamity, as an affliction, as alien, as disintegrating, as void, as not-self. He turns his mind away from those states and directs it towards the deathless element thus: ‘This is peaceful, this is sublime, the stilling of all fabrications, the relinquishment of all acquisitions, the destruction of craving; dispassion, cessation, Nibbāna.’

“If he is steady in that, he attains destruction of the taints. But if he does not attain destruction of the taints because of that desire for the Dhamma, that delight in the Dhamma, then with the destruction of the five lower fetters he becomes qualified to reappear spontaneously in the Pure Abodes, and there attain final Nibbāna without ever returning from that world. This is the Path…”
— Mahā-mālunkya Sutta (MN 64)

Nibbāna 26: Advancing on the Path

First we need to understand the four levels of enlightenment or stages of deliverance according to the Buddha’s teaching: Stream-entry, Once-returner, Non-returner and Arahant. A Stream-entrant has almost destroyed three lower fetters. A Once-returner has almost destroyed the five lower fetters. A Non-returner has destroyed the five lower fetters completely, and partially destroyed the five higher fetters as well. An Arhant has completely destroyed all the ten fetters.

Nibbāna 24: Hacking the Dhamma

The Buddha’s teaching is:
1. Apophatic: Nibbāna is the unstated ‘elephant in the room’.
2. Fractal: Every Sutta reflects the same design or image.
3. Ontologically coherent:
• The Suttas are all based on the Four Noble Truths.
• They all point to the same ineffable, inexplicable state.
• Each one is an extended metaphor about the indefinable.

No other tradition or system of thought—including modern science—can make this claim.

Buddha reached Nibbāna & delivered Suttas over 2600 years ago. Implementations were based on social & psychological conditions at the time. Those implementations are certainly obsolete, unworkable. Organizations based on them are static, hierarchical, authoritarian. We need to hack the Dhamma and create many new implementations. We want to be free to pursue maximum interestingness—not enslaved by maintaining obsolete implementations.

Nibbāna 25: Part 2 Introduction and Summary

“This is peaceful, this is excellent: the stilling of all fabrications; the relinquishment of all assets; the destruction of craving; detachment, cessation, Nibbāna.” — Mahā-Mālunkya Sutta (MN 64)

There is a reason most people can’t experience Nibbāna and reach enlightenment. ‘Buddhist’ religious organizations have oversimplified, distorted and obscured the original teachings of the Buddha. If this continues much longer, the practices that brought the Buddha and his original disciples to enlightenment may be lost forever.

Nibbāna the Ineffable

ineffable adj. too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words; not to be uttered.

Synonyms: indescribable, inexpressible, beyond words, beyond description, begging description; indefinable, unutterable, untold, unimaginable; overwhelming, breathtaking, awesome, marvelous, wonderful, staggering, amazing.

Most people trying to understand the Buddha’s teaching fall into two classes: those who think it’s about being, and those who think it’s about nonbeing. Schools such as Mahāyāna and the religious practitioners are contemplating Buddhism as being; Zen and other voidists are contemplating it as nonbeing. Both are incorrect, and their understanding is insufficient for complete enlightenment. Actually the Buddha’s teaching is about something inconceivable and ineffable: neither-being-nor-nonbeing.

A Beautiful Discussion of Nibbāna

“Nibbāna is the untranslatable expression of the Unspeakable, of that for which in the Buddha’s own saying there is no word, which cannot be grasped in terms of reasoning and cool logic, the Nameless Undefinable (cp. the simile of extinction of the flame which may be said to pass from a visible state into a state which cannot be defined. Thus the Arahant passes into that same state, for which there is “no measure” (i. e. no dimension): atthangatassa na pamāṇam atthi . . . yena naṃ vajju: taṃ tassa n’ atthi SN 1076. Yet, it is a reality, and its characteristic features may be described, may be grasped in terms of earthly language, in terms of space (as this is the only means at our disposal to describe abstract notions of time and mentality).