Brothers,
I have understood Liberation(the equivalent of nirvana in Hinduism) means a person will no longer be born on earth but will continue his evolution in other higher states. It comes with bliss and awareness of illusion of samsara. You can have it after death or even when still embodied. I haven't figured out yet, if activating Kundalini is the way to achieve it or not.
I have read Buddha's life many times and it seems that even achieving Mahaparinirvana, he had many pains: physical,mental etc. Which means this stage didn't still solve the basic problem of pain(may be it put an end to suffering).
So that brings me back to the question, what exactly is Nirvana?Is it same as Mahaparinirvana which Buddha attained.Is there something beyond this?
This is Nirvana:
In the seen, there is only the seen,
in the heard, there is only the heard,
in the sensed, there is only the sensed,
in the cognized, there is only the cognized.
Thus you should see that
indeed there is no thing here;
this, Bahiya, is how you should train yourself.
Since, Bahiya, there is for you
in the seen, only the seen,
in the heard, only the heard,
in the sensed, only the sensed,
in the cognized, only the cognized,
and you see that there is no thing here,
you will therefore see that
indeed there is no thing there.
As you see that there is no thing there,
you will see that
you are therefore located neither in the world of this,
nor in the world of that,
nor in any place
betwixt the two.
This alone is the end of suffering.” (ud. 1.10)
Read this whole article from which it is quoted from, its well written: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.sg/2008/01/ajahn-amaro-on-non-duality-and.html
In Hinduism, their state of liberation is called Moksha. The Buddhist liberation is called Nirvana.
You ask me if Kundalini will lead to Nirvana, my answer is that Kundalini can lead to certain experiences and realization, but not Nirvana. For Nirvana you need to realize right view.
Also I think you read wrong. Buddha had physical pain after awakening but no more mental suffering at all. No more craving, hate/aggression, or delusions. That is Nirvana.
This was said by the Lord...
"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.
"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.
"Now what, bhikkhus, is the Nibbana-element with no residue left? Here a bhikkhu is an arahant... 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.
"These, bhikkhus, are the two Nibbana-elements."
Thanks for the info. I believe Nirvana in Buddhism refers to the extinction of self or the doer is out of picture.
Doesn't smoking weed/taking drugs put us into this condition?Or perhaps even deep sleep?
First of all, Nirvana is not the 'extinction of self or doer'. This is because there never was a truly existing self or doer that could be pinned down to begin with. Nirvana is the end of a habitual misperception with its resulting afflictive emotions, and this misperception arises out of ignorance
of what reality always already is.
Nirvana is *not* a peak
experience, it is certainly not inducable by drugs and it requires
wisdom to realize Nirvana. Deep sleep doesn't cause that realization.
As I wrote before:
"First I do not see Anatta as merely a freeing from personality sort
of experience as you mentioned; I see it as that a self/agent, a doer, a
thinker, a watcher, etc, cannot be found apart from the moment to
moment flow of manifestation or as its commonly expressed as ‘the
observer is the observed’; there is no self apart from arising and
passing. A very important point here is that Anatta/No-Self is a Dharma
Seal, it is the nature of Reality all the time -- and not merely as a
state free from personality, ego or the ‘small self’ or a stage to
attain. This means that it does not depend on the level of achievement of a practitioner to experience anatta but Reality has always been Anatta and what is important here is the intuitive insight into it as the nature, characteristic, of phenomenon (dharma seal).
To put further emphasis on the importance of this point, I would like to borrow from the Bahiya Sutta (http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.1.10.irel.html)
that ‘in the seeing, there is just the seen, no seer’, ‘in the hearing,
there is just the heard, no hearer’ as an illustration. When a person
says that I have gone beyond the experiences from ‘I hear sound’ to a
stage of ‘becoming sound’, he is mistaken. When it is taken to be a
stage, it is illusory. For in actual case, there is and always is only
sound when hearing; never was there a hearer to begin with. Nothing
attained for it is always so. This is the seal of no-self. Therefore to a
non dualist, the practice is in understanding the illusionary views of
the sense of self and the split. Before the awakening of prajna wisdom,
there will always be an unknowing attempt to maintain a purest state of
'presence'. This purest presence is the 'how' of a dualistic mind -- its
dualistic attempt to provide a solution due to its lack of clarity of
the spontaneous nature of the unconditioned. It is critical to note here
that both the doubts/confusions/searches and the solutions that are
created for these doubts/confusions/searches actually derive from the
same cause -- our karmic propensities of ever seeing things
dualistically"
Nirvana is Analytical cessation in contrast to non-analytical cessation (peak experiences, deep sleep, etc):
"
Cessation (Wyl.‘gog pa; Skt. nirodha) — generally the word refers to the absence or extinction of a given entity. As the third of the four noble truths, it refers specifically to the pacification of suffering and its causes, and is therefore a synonym of nirvana.
Cessation is of two kinds:
In his commentary to Mipham Rinpoche’s Khenjuk, Khenpo Nüden writes:
This is the unconditioned aspect of the permanent elimination of destructive emotions and other factors to be eliminated, through the force of developing realization of the undefiling path, such as the wisdom of discernment, within the mind.
This does not refer to the ceasing of latent habitual tendencies as a result of analysis and investigation, but rather to the absence of a given thing in a particular place due to an incompleteness of necessary causes and conditions, as in the case of horns on a horse’s head, for instance. Another example which is mentioned in the commentaries is the fact that other types of consciousness do not arise when the eye-consciousness is distracted by a visual form. This also includes all the various forms of non-existence (or absence), such as the absence of a vase in a particular place."
About drugs: smoking weed does not lead to the loss of the sense of self. In fact sometimes it aggravates it, and sometimes it causes states of dissociation, called depersonalization. In a state of depersonalization, the sense of self is still strong, but now it feels separated from reality as a Watcher. So now you are a Watcher of things, happening on its own, but you do not feel you have control over it. Reality starts to have a dream-like quality and you become dissociated from it. Smoking weed can lead to such a situation (apart from the high and other possible side effects like paranoia, etc). I do not see this as helpful in to spiritual progression as it does not lead to the dissolution of sense of self. Ketamine also produces dissociative feelings.
There are drugs like psychedelics. Psychedelics such as LSD, DMT, ayahuasca and so forth do lead to a temporary loss of sense of self (non-analytical cessation). It does lead to intense peak experiences and religious experiences of "cosmic consciousness". But even so, the experience is more similar to I AMness rather than no-self. And even if they have peak experience of non-duality it is not anatta. Nonetheless, a lot of westerners turned to spirituality and Buddhism after experimenting with psychedelics and glimpsing a deeper reality of their consciousness. I say these drugs have a limited potential or benefit for turning certain groups of people towards a spiritual path. Nevertheless I do not advise or recommend any intake of drugs, as doing proper meditation and practices is enough, and that brings sustainable meditative experiences rather than quick unsustainable glimpses. But neither am I particularly against people experimenting with these drugs (but like Alan Watts said about psychedelics: "when you get the message, hang up the phone") - many of my Westerner friends had openings and initial glimpses and peak experiences that turned them towards the spiritual path. They have later reached very deep realizations (not by psychedelics of course, psychedelics merely opened a window for them).
(Please do not try Any kind of drugs, at least not in Singapore, sometimes the law is more dangerous than the drugs to its users (depends on what drugs, of course hard drugs like heroin, ice/meth, cocaine etc are extremely harmful and deadly, while a number of softer drugs are considered to be less harmful than alcohol and tobacco, but nonetheless banned due to our strict zero-drugs policy, which I think is good in many ways). In certain countries like Netherlands, certain 'softer' drugs are legal to some extent, and even in certain states of Australia, U.S., etc, and even in states that are not legal, the enforcement is usually little and sometimes you get let off with just a warning. In any case, any form of habit towards substance abuse and intoxication is always very negative from a practice point of view and must be avoided.)
Also the Moksha of Hinduism is more related to the first four stages: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.sg/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html
Buddhist enlightenment starts at stage 5.
I have just read the blog that you indicated. is it your experiences?Have you already been liberated/achieved Nirvana?
This state was reached by thinking about what is self?Or did you do anything else as well?
Hindusim as I know speaks of Heaven(temporal existence in higher planes but needs to be back),Moksha(free of physical births but others continue),liberation(free from all births), realisation and finally layavastha(ultimate merger).
At the end of time/Mahapralaya, all atomic bonds are destroyed and universe ceases to exist. Then all souls are merged with ultimate/Brahman. Some say then all the non-liberated souls come back when the universe is re-created and others say everyone comes back.I don't know if in Budhism its same.
Thusness is my spiritual mentor. I have my own journal at http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-e-booke-journal.html and the process I gone through is quite similar to his.
Having a realization is one thing, it takes a process to continue to reach the complete exhaustion of all karmic tendencies. Therefore a difference between stream entry and arahant, 1st bhumi bodhisattva and buddhahood, etc.
"Who am I" only leads to the I AMness realization. It does not lead to realizing anatta or emptiness. Different technique for different realization. My e-book discusses some of the ways I reached different realizations. For example to realize anatta I contemplated on Bahiya Sutta, the link I pasted to you above on 'in the seen just the seen.. etc'.
In Buddhism, we do not teach 'souls' or 'merger with Brahman'. We reject 'Brahman' or any kind of substantial collective/universal source or substratum (this is seen through in Thusness Stage 5). We teach no-self, mindstreams, and yes there is cyclic universes of expansion and contraction.. a beginningless cycle of samsara.
At the end of this cycle, every realm up to the 1st Jhana plane of devas will be destroyed (the planes of 2nd jhana and above will not be affected):
http://www.jenchen.org.sg/vol8no2a.htm
Before the 19th small
kalpa, all the sentient beings that are above the 1st Jhana [1] , and
in all the worlds from the 1st Jhana down to the Hell of Ceaseless Suffering,
will transmigrate, each according to his own good karmic seeds of the
past. Some will transmigrate above the 2nd Jhana; some will surpass Three
Fields of Existence (World of Desires, World of Forms, and World of Formless);
and others will arrive at Pure Lands of Buddhas elsewhere. At this time,
the world of sentient beings will be totally ruined. Only then, at the
end of the final phase of the last small kalpa, will the "Three Great
Calamities" occur, destroying all the material worlds. These three calamities
of fire, water and wind will not occur simultaneously, but each will take
its turn. At that time, balance in space will be lost, planets of all
the worlds will leave their orbits, and looking from the earth, one will
see seven suns appear in the sky at the same time. The suns' fiery heat
will burn up all the worlds. The destruction will reach the farthest depths
of the Hell of Ceaseless Suffering, including all the worlds of the Three
Thousand Great Chilocosm World of Desires, and even the 1st Jhana of the
World of Forms.
The difference between 'Self' or 'soul' view (Hinduism) and 'mindstream' (Buddhism):
In short:
"self" = "atman" / "pudgala" / "purisa" / etc.
--> permanent, blissful, autonomous entity, totally unaffected by any conditioned phenomena
"mind" = "citta" / "manas" / "vijnana" / etc.
--> stream of momentarily arising and ceasing states of
consciousness, thus not an entity, each of which is conditioned by sense
organ, sense object and preceding mental states
Neither are material.
That's a brief overview, lot's of things to nit pick at, but
otherwise it'll require a 1000 page monograph to make everyone happy.
You'll need to study up on "dependent origination" (pratitya-samutpada) to get into any depth to answer your questions.
~ Ven Hui-feng