What Is Nibbana?

When thinking about the topics worth addressing on this blog, I realized that many of them relate, in one way or another, to Nibbana — the goal of the Buddhist practice. So before exploring the various topics I get asked about, I want to establish what I actually mean by Nibbana. As with my treatment of jhana in the Jhana Training Manual, this is not an attempt to argue for one specific interpretation, nor to provide an exhaustive analysis. The purpose is simply to clarify what I am referring to when I write "Nibbana."

This is, to some extent, subjective — it depends on what I have heard about Nibbana from others. I think Nibbana is sometimes treated as overly metaphysical or mystical: something so unfathomable that we can barely think about it, talk about it, or describe it. I don't share that view. Surely, Nibbana is very difficult and rare to attain, but in terms of what it is, I don't find it as ungraspable as it is sometimes portrayed. In fact, I would say its meaning is relatively concrete and down-to-earth (which should not be mistaken for easy to attain).

Two kinds of Nibbana

There are two "types" of Nibbana: with remainder and without remainder, the remainder being the five aggregates (form, feeling, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness), or simply the "living being."

"Bhikkhus, there are these two Nibbana-elements. What are the two? The Nibbana-element with residue left and the Nibbana-element with no residue left."

(Itivuttaka 44, John D. Ireland)

Nibbana with remainder

Nibbana with remainder refers to the state of a person who has attained full awakening in this life (an arahant). Such a person has irreversibly uprooted certain qualities from the mind. The early Buddhist texts list a few different sets of qualities, mainly the three unwholesome roots (greed, hatred, delusion); the three taints (craving for sensuality, craving for existence, and ignorance); and the ten fetters (personality view, doubt, wrong grasp of rites and rituals, sensual desire, ill-will, lust for form, lust for the formless, conceit, restlessness, and ignorance). Which set a given sutta uses varies, but in every case, the arahant has irreversibly abandoned all of these qualities. The meaning of Nibbana with remainder is thus the absence of these qualities.

"What, bhikkhus, is the Nibbana-element with residue left? Here a bhikkhu is an arahant, one whose taints are destroyed, the holy life fulfilled, who has done what had to be done, laid down the burden, attained the goal, destroyed the fetters of being, completely released through final knowledge. However, his five sense faculties remain unimpaired, by which he still experiences what is agreeable and disagreeable and feels pleasure and pain. It is the extinction of attachment, hate, and delusion in him that is called the Nibbana-element with residue left."

(Itivuttaka 44, John D. Ireland)

Nibbana without remainder

The presence of these qualities — possibly in the form of latent tendencies — is what results in existence continuing after death. Their uprooting therefore secures the non-continuation of existence after death: existence ceases at the moment of death, with no remainder. This is final Nibbana — Nibbana without remainder — the cessation of existence.

"But of what was the Venerable Sariputta percipient on that occasion?" "One perception arose and another perception ceased in me: 'The cessation of existence is nibbana; the cessation of existence is nibbana.' Just as, when a fire of twigs is burning, one flame arises and another flame ceases, so one perception arose and another perception ceased in me: 'The cessation of existence is nibbana; the cessation of existence is nibbana.' On that occasion, friend, I was percipient: 'The cessation of existence is nibbana.'"

(AN 10.7, Bhikkhu Bodhi)

"Now what, bhikkhus, is the Nibbana-element with no residue left? Here a bhikkhu is an arahant, one whose taints are destroyed, the holy life fulfilled, who has done what had to be done, laid down the burden, attained the goal, destroyed the fetters of being, completely released through final knowledge. For him, here in this very life, all that is experienced, not being delighted in, will be extinguished. That, bhikkhus, is called the Nibbana-element with no residue left."

(Itivuttaka 44, John D. Ireland)

If I were to explain final Nibbana in plain language, I would put it this way. Take a materialist who believes there is no rebirth — that nothing continues after death, nothing mental and nothing physical, that everything simply ends. What the materialist believes happens to everyone at death is, in essence, final Nibbana. (From the Buddhist perspective, of course, the materialist view is mistaken: for everyone except arahants, existence does continue after death.)

A natural objection arises here: isn't this simply annihilationism — the view, explicitly rejected by the Buddha, that a being is destroyed at death? It is not, and the distinction matters. Annihilationism assumes there is a self, or being, that exists on its own and is then cut off. The Buddhist analysis denies that premise from the outset: no standalone self is found even now, only a conditioned process — the five aggregates hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving. What ends at final Nibbana is therefore not a self that gets annihilated but a process that is no longer fed and so no longer continues. This is also why, when asked whether a liberated one exists after death, does not exist, both, or neither, the Buddha set all four answers aside. Each of the four options smuggles in a self, which would either persist or be destroyed — and that is exactly the assumption being dismantled. "Cessation of existence," then, means the ending of a conditioned process, not the annihilation of a self.

Common misconceptions about Nibbana

"Nibbana is the end of suffering and the arahant is beyond suffering. Therefore, an arahant is no longer subject to suffering."

This directly contradicts Itivuttaka 44, quoted above: the arahant's five sense faculties remain unimpaired, so he still experiences the agreeable and the disagreeable, and still feels pleasure and pain. An arahant has removed greed, hatred, and delusion, not pain receptors. The "end of suffering" refers to the final Nibbana after the arahant's death; and being "beyond suffering" means being irreversibly bound to attain that state without suffering (Nibbana without remainder) in the future, after death.

"You can have a momentary experience of Nibbana."

There is no such thing as a temporary Nibbana. Either you attain arahantship (Nibbana), which is irreversible, or you do not. You can have a "glimpse" of Nibbana, or "see" Nibbana, meaning you have come closer to it and intuitively understand what it is, but you cannot "enter" or "directly experience" Nibbana temporarily. That would violate the whole point of it: that the fetters, taints, and unwholesome roots are irreversibly uprooted. No one except an arahant has entered and directly experienced Nibbana — not even non-returners. This refers, of course, to "Nibbana proper," not to Nibbana in a provisional sense. (AN 9.47 speaks of the jhanas as Nibbana in a provisional sense, since the mind's defilements cease there as well — but only temporarily.)

"Nibbana is a kind of permanent bliss."

I confess to having held this view myself when I was new to Buddhism. "Nibbana is the highest bliss" — a true statement, which can be quite misleading if interpreted incorrectly. The bliss of an arahant is the bliss of freedom from the defilements, taints, and fetters; it is not bliss in the sense of constant pleasant feeling or some kind of ecstasy. As noted above, an arahant still experiences pain and is not completely free from suffering until death.

Nibbana without remainder is even less of a "bliss" in the conventional sense. Since any form of existence is unsatisfactory (dukkha), the cessation of it can be called bliss — but, again, not bliss in the sense of pleasant experience. In fact, there is no experience whatsoever, and that is precisely the "bliss" and peace of final Nibbana.

"Something still remains after the passing away of an arahant (some form of consciousness, for instance)."

I will offer a few reasons why I think such interpretations gain traction in Buddhist circles:

• The craving for existence makes it hard to accept that the goal of the practice — the "victory and reward" for all the hard work — is really a "samsaric suicide," and nothing more.

• The term "Nibbana dhatu" (Nibbana element) invites the thought: "Surely that can't be just nothing, it must be something." Part of the issue here is simply that the word "Nibbana" is left untranslated. It can sound mysterious and carries little specific meaning unless your native language happens to be Pali (rather unlikely). If we translate it — the element of blowing out/extinguishment/quenching — does it still sound as though something remains or continues?

• "The unconditioned" invites the same move: "THE unconditioned — that must be something." As I understand it, this simply refers to the negation of conditioned existence. While there is existence — a being — it is subject to conditionality and the twelvefold chain of dependent origination. When all of this ceases (Nibbana without remainder), there is no more conditionality and no more dependent origination, and that is what is called "the unconditioned."

What Nibbana is

Nibbana is not a mystical "something" hidden beyond all comprehension, nor a permanent bliss to be experienced, nor the annihilation of a self that was never there to begin with. It is the irreversible uprooting of the unwholesome roots, taints, and fetters in this life, and the cessation of the conditioned process at death without remainder.

Sources:

The Udana & the Itivuttaka, John D. Ireland, Buddhist Publication Society, 1997

Anguttara Nikaya (AN): The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Wisdom Publications, 2012

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