So this will be the last of the four talks on Nibbāna or Nirvana in Sanskrit.
And I want to start it with some words from the Thai forest master Ajahn Chah who is the teacher of many of my teachers.
What is Nibbāna all about anyway?
Nibbāna means not grasping.
Nibbāna means not giving meaning to things.
Nibbāna means letting go,
Making offerings and doing meritus deeds,
Observing moral precepts and meditating on loving kindness.
All of these are for getting rid of defilements and craving,
For not wishing for anything,
Not wishing to be or becoming anything,
For making the mind empty,
Empty of self-cherishing,
Empty of concepts of self and other.
And this is kind of the ultimate goal,
Nibbāna,
The ultimate goal of mindfulness practice as taught by the Buddha.
And mindfulness practice is meant to be onward leading where we are led and supported onward into some of the deepest potentials for freedom that we can have as people,
Freedom of the heart,
Freedom of the mind.
So one of the core definitions of Nibbāna in my understanding is it's a release from all suffering.
And the word all is important here.
There could be a lot of partial Nibbānas,
Partial freedoms that come along as things that have been troubling for us for a long time will then finally release.
But the definitive experiencing of Nibbāna is generally a temporary experience.
The experience which is like a radical cessation of all suffering,
Now that catches our attention,
Takes our breath away almost like wow this is possible,
This radical cessation of suffering,
Of all suffering.
Sometimes Nibbāna is defined by the psychological forces which are the causes for suffering,
Which are suffering themselves and greed and hatred and delusion.
These are the forces,
The psychological forces that cause suffering.
And Nibbāna is defined as a release of those,
A freedom from those,
The cessation,
The destruction of those.
And it's not a blank slate.
Its association is positive,
It's associated with health,
It's associated with happiness and well being,
With peace.
And so the experience of Nibbāna,
The word is kind of like it means going out,
Like the going out of a fire or the going out of a fever.
I think a fever is a really good example.
When you have a fever and the fever breaks,
Then you're healthier,
You feel good.
So the fever of greed,
The fever of aversion,
The fever of confusion,
When these go out,
There is relief.
And Nibbāna changes a person who experiences it.
It says in the Buddhist tradition,
They say that a person becomes noble and there's kind of a state shift that's strong enough that we change.
And what is it that changes?
And in the tradition,
It will often be described as the relationship to the eightfold path.
With the experience of Nibbāna,
The going out of greed,
Hatred and delusion,
The way that we experience those events,
Something gets born inside of us.
And the language of being born is used by the Buddha and what is born inside of us is this noble eightfold path.
And usually someone who experiences Nibbāna is said to become a stream enter,
Someone who has entered the stream.
That's the usual English way of saying it.
So we enter the current of this river.
And it's important to appreciate that because the current is what carries you along to the ocean.
So we're being carried deeper and deeper and fuller into this experience of Nibbāna,
This experience of freedom.
And as long as we're in the river,
There's some freedom.
So the idea is when it comes to the ocean,
The fullness of the ocean,
The fullness of freedom is there.
So we're being carried by this current towards the ocean.
This is one of the metaphors.
And it's interesting because the Buddha says a person who has experienced this release,
This deep release of Nibbāna is endowed with the eightfold path.
So something is born,
Something is endowed with,
Something we enter into,
We're carried by.
It's a very different idea of the eightfold path,
You know.
We see it as a linear path that we follow,
Not something that we are endowed with.
They say that with Nibbāna,
With a big enough release,
All the eight factors of the path are not steps along the way,
But they're unified and they become who we are.
So they become the way that we navigate the world.
They're just present in us.
The ethical components,
The sila,
The concentrated components,
The samadhi,
And the wisdom components,
The pañña.
So as we travel along the current,
We're being in harmony with really this path of practice.
We're starting to naturally live this path,
This eightfold path.
So someone who has Nibbāna,
It said that they have virtue,
They have a sense of integrity.
There's a knowing,
A kind of completeness in our bodies.
And in that there's that completeness,
That wholeness.
You know,
It protects us from kind of clinging,
Attachments,
Unethical behavior.
And so we can start to feel this reference point inside of us,
This ethical reference point for being settled and being free.
And it's phenomenal to have an ethical reference point.
And so it seems in the early teachings that when the Buddha was first teaching the eightfold path,
What is called the Noble Eightfold Path,
He was teaching it to people who had experienced Nibbāna.
And in the Pali,
The original wording is of the Eightfold Path is that the Eightfold Path of the Noble Ones.
So the Eightfold Path of those who already have some degree of freedom.
And so we possess it,
We're in the current with it.
And then someone who has had this experience of freedom,
Of non clinging,
Their task then is to develop this Eightfold Path further.
They say all the eight path factors converge and unite for the experience of Nibbāna,
For the experience of release,
Of letting go,
Of removing the fuel,
The fuel that keeps suffering going,
The fires of suffering that we have in ourselves.
So as we develop the Eightfold Path further,
We develop our intentions,
Our ethics,
Our effort,
Our mindfulness and our concentration.
The practice is the same before and after Nibbāna.
But after Nibbāna,
There's a new reference point.
Ajahn Chah calls it an unshakable peace,
An unshakable confidence.
And maybe some of you know what that's about.
Maybe that's true for some of us who are practicing here,
That we've had some degree of freedom,
Some degree of letting go,
Some degree of non clinging that has inspired us to give us enthusiasm to keep going.
A vision for what's possible that can serve as a guide and support us in practice.
Maybe you've had some experiences with this Nibbāna,
Even if it's a trace experience,
You know,
Something where you've really fully seen the release in your life.
Or maybe it's full stream entry.
In the monastic practices,
This is what Ajahn Chah recommends to the monastics with this practice of Nibbāna.
As I see it,
He writes,
Realizing the truth doesn't happen by relying on others.
You should understand that all doubts will be resolved by your own efforts by continuous energetic practice.
We won't get free of doubt by asking others.
We will only end out through our own unrelenting efforts.
Remember this,
It is an important principle in practice.
The actual doing is what will instruct you.
Throughout the teachings,
That is what we see repeatedly.
Don't take my word for it.
Practice.
See for yourself.
It's a phenomenal path to be on together.
And it's a tried and true path if we practice it,
If we trust it.
So thank you for your kind attention this morning.
