The Tathagata Gautama’s

descriptions of Nirvana

It is important to keep in mind that despite over 250 years of serious and sustained literary and physical archaeology no ‘hard’ evidence about the life and person of Gautama, the Sakymuni, and who declared himself to be The Buddha, has been uncovered. Even the dates of his life are uncertain (there being at least 49 different suggestions as to when he might have lived). In short, the search for the Ur-Buddha (and what he did in fact believe and preach) has been fruitless.

All Buddhist suttas (or sutras) begin with: ‘Thus I have heard,…’, thereby leaving open the question as to who heard the sutta and from whom and when it was heard, and the circumstances of transmission. That the statements of the Buddha were initially transmitted orally, perhaps for as many as 200 to 400 years, is certain. Whether or not parts of the Pali (Theravada) version are older than those of the Sanskrit (Mahayana) versions cannot be decided.

As in other religions, for instance Judaism and Islam, later redactors edited and interpolated the ‘originals’ (i.e. with later compilations such as the ‘Turning of the Wheel of the Dhamma sutta) and rearranged their sequence to give the impression that the founder had if not discovered then at least left a system that was complete (and final). In the case of the Buddha Gautama, the dhamma suffered from the most serious incompleteness. Generations of monks of at least 5 major and a host of minor schools attempted to produce the perfect fix. It was eventually Nagarjuna who declared Gautama’s reality (and its cessation) dhamma to be ‘insufficient reason’. And that’s when Tantric Buddhism came into its own.

The following short collection of excerpts is provided to highlight Gautama’s severely fuzzy notion of Nibbana (Sanskrit: Nirvana). Gautama lived during the period of religious renewal and philosophic advances described in the Upanishads. He appears to have focussed on some particular aspects of Upanishad thinking (specifically the incompleteness theory found in the early Upanishads as well as the atta (Sanskrit: atman) theory, though he choose not to define the latter) and developed them in fine detail. Sadly for him, he accepted the basic premises about Atman, about the (apparently) sorry state of the world (that is to say, his own sorry state, to wit, he appears to have started his career as a homeless wanderer when, at about the age of 30, he ‘burnt out’, then ‘dropped out’) and the noble (Aryan) way of returning to Atman (i.e. by means of escendence, specifically, by means of elimination of ignorance (i.e. the traditional mode of Vedanta), and to which he added greed and hatred). The result, highly productive for the mass-murderer Ashoka seeking a belief system conducive to that pacification, but fundamentally counterproductive for everyone else, was that he told less than half of the whole story.

“I thought: ‘This teaching does not lead to dispassion, to fading of lust, to cessation, to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment (?), to Nibbana, ....’.”	The Buddha here associates nibbana with a series of alternate experiences, each of which describes a different function. He adds nibbana at the end, obviously believing (or imagining) nibbana as different from the foregoing. Since the quote comes from an anecdote describing his search prior to his achievement of samma-sambodhi, he must have had a clear understanding but no direct experience of nibbana.
“And it is hard to see this truth, that is to say, stilling all formations, relinquishing of the essentials of existence, exhaustion of craving, fading of lust, cessation, Nibbana.”	This variation, made after his achievement of samma-sambodhi, fails to clarify his understanding of the term nibbana. Why the Buddha did not define the term nibbana clearly, hence beyond doubt, is a mystery
“There is, O disciples, something that is unborn, un-grown, unmade, unconfirmed. If this unborn, un-grown, unmade and unconfirmed had not been there, there would not have been an alternative for those who are born, made, grown and conformed.”	This is the view taken by the inventors of the Upanishads, and who believed that that atman (or atta) was some ‘thing’ (i.e. a definable state). The logic of the argument escapes me since there is no positive description of the ‘un-born, un-grown, and so on’. If atman (or atta) happens prior to birth, growth, made or confirmed, then it cannot be described as a ‘thing’.
“I know no end of suffering, if one has not reached the end of the world. But I proclaim to you that in this animated body as big as a fathom, there lives the world, the origin of the world, extinction of the world and the path to the extinction of the world.”	This quote appears to be a very late interpolation. It speaks of extinction (to wit, annihilation), a view which the Buddha did not hold, at least according to the Theravada version of Buddhism
“One who, therefore, sees this, O disciples, an experienced, noble listener of the word, turns away from corporeality, turns away from feelings, ideas, conformations, knowledge. While he turns away from them, he will be free from desire. He gets salvation by giving up desire. The knowledge of salvation arises in one getting salvation: destroyed is the rebirth, the holy mutation accomplished, the duty fulfilled: he knows thus that there is no return to this world.”	This is late Buddhist nonsense, probably invented to satisfy the needs of the laity. Salvation implies transcendence, i.e. shifting from one (unpleasant) state to another (less unpleasant). Since all states suffer decay. The Buddha could not have sought salvation. He appears, at least in old age, to have sought escendence, i.e. the release from all states
“Where there is nothing, where there is no clinging, the only island, it is called Nirvana. It is devoid of old age, devoid of death.”	Where there is nothing there is no island (i.e. no state, no ‘it’), therefore hence no possibility of ‘arising and decay’.
‘This being’ is described by the Buddha as ‘deathlessness’ (Pali: amata or amaravati)	The Buddha describes nibbana as ‘the deathless’, thereby suggesting that it is either lifeless or life without end. His negative description does not bring closure to the problem of the meaning of nibbana.
“There is that dimension where there is neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor wind; neither dimension of the infinitude of space, nor dimension of the infinitude of consciousness, nor dimension of nothingness, nor dimension of neither perception nor non-perception; neither this world, nor the next world, nor sun, nor moon. And there, I say, there is neither coming, nor going, nor stasis; neither passing away nor arising: without stance, without foundation, without support [mental object]. This, just this, is the end of stress.”	This is very late Buddhist nonsense, no doubt produced to satisfy the needs of the laity. The final sentence suggests that the author considered nibbana to be the end of stress, to wit, decay to @rest status.
“Nirvana is the highest happiness.” [Dp 204]	More late Buddhist nonsense. Since happiness also decays into suffering, achieving this nirvana is not final rest, hence nirvana proper
“Like a flame that has been blown out by a strong wind goes to rest and cannot be defined, just so the sage who is freed from name and body goes to rest and cannot be defined.”	This quote suggests nirvana to mean extinction, i.e. the exhaustion of identity, and when contact, and with it transmission (i.e. rebirth of karmic residue) are no longer possible.
“Cessation of lust, of hate and of delusion is the Unformed (Unconditioned), the End, the Taintless, the Other Shore, the Subtle, the Very Hard to See, the Un-weakening, the Everlasting, the Un-disintegrating, the Invisible, the Un-diversified, Peace, the Deathless, the Superior Goal, the Blest, Safety, Exhaustion of Craving, the Wonderful, the Marvellous, Non-distress, the Naturally Non-distressed, Nibbana, Non-affliction, (Un-hostility), Fading of Lust, Purity, Freedom, Independence of Reliance, the Island, the Shelter, the Harbour, the Refuge, the Beyond.” S. 43:1-44	A true catch-all of late Buddhist nonsense. It is hardly likely that the Buddha would have made much of an impression on his immediate followers, and who were all experienced and knowledgeable dropouts (i.e. ‘world renouncers’), with this outburst. It is this kind of village Buddhist garbage that has prevented serious analysis of the nirvana concept and, no doubt, contributed much to the survival of Buddhism down the ages.