Published On:Saturday, 20 September 2014
Posted by Celebrate Life Style information Blog
GLOBAL FAITHS: Nirvana's mentality not that far off from Christianity
GLOBAL FAITHS: Nirvana's mentality not that far off from Christianity
By MARLIN JESCHKE Columnist
I recently went to the Internet to get updated on what an old Buddhist friend of mine was doing. Professor David Kalupahana had given me great help in my month-long study of Buddhism in Sri Lanka back in 1969, and I had him as a guest at Goshen College in the early 1970s. As recently as the summer of 1992 I had been his house guest for a couple of weeks in Hawaii, where he had become a professor of Buddhist studies at the University of Hawaii.
Imagine my surprise — and sorrow — to find that my Buddhist professor friend had recently died. The University of Hawaii Department of philosophy had an “In Memoriam” obituary of him, which included several insightful comments on his interpretation of early Buddhism. These comments included one on his definition of Nirvana.
Nirvana has always been a central term in Buddhism. According to the basic story of the life and teaching of the Buddha, there is something fundamentally unsatisfactory in human existence. It is people’s craving, attachment and desire. And the answer to that unsatisfactoriness is meditation in order to achieve the insight that is the solution to the problem. That insight the Buddha realized, and Buddhism calls it Nirvana.
Originally Nirvana, a term derived from the Sanskrit, meant simply “to blow out,” as a candle flame. In the original context its connotation was fairly clear. Through the insight achieved in meditation a person’s desires, cravings and attachments were quenched. The person became cool, to give Buddhist meaning to a term of today’s younger generation.
Buddhist discipline sometimes arranged for monks’ meditation to take place near a “charnel ground,” that is, near a cremation area, where monks were invited to get a realistic view of life by reviewing the makeup of the human body — bile, blood, urine, feces, tears, snot, bones, skin, etc. Such meditation was expected to cool their appetites, desires, and passions.
As Westerners encountered Buddhism and got attracted to it in modern times, Nirvana became an esoteric and mysterious term for them, sometimes with otherworldly connotations. Some Western interpreters of Buddhism thought Nirvana meant emptying the mind, seeking a psychological state, perhaps ecstasy, where one was thinking of nothing, or even not thinking. Such an interpretation is, of course, absurd, if not a contradiction.
In view of this mystification of the term in Western interpretation it was refreshing to read the clarification of Nirvana offered by Professor Kalupahana. He was an able scholar who knew Pali, Sanskrit, even Chinese, and had done his doctorate at the University of London. He said Nirvana “signified the ultimate achievement of freedom,” that is, “the capacity of human beings to realize their full potential.”
In one of his early (1975) books he wrote: “(Nirvana) is a state of perfect mental health … of perfect happiness … calmness or coolness … and stability … attainable in this life, or while one is alive.”
This clear explanation eliminates much of the needless mystification the term Nirvana has accumulated in the modern West. If my Buddhist friend is right, the Buddha was not talking about a metaphysical (beyond bodily existence) or otherworldly state of mind, but simply freedom from cravings, attachment and desire. [Source...!]
By MARLIN JESCHKE Columnist
I recently went to the Internet to get updated on what an old Buddhist friend of mine was doing. Professor David Kalupahana had given me great help in my month-long study of Buddhism in Sri Lanka back in 1969, and I had him as a guest at Goshen College in the early 1970s. As recently as the summer of 1992 I had been his house guest for a couple of weeks in Hawaii, where he had become a professor of Buddhist studies at the University of Hawaii.
Imagine my surprise — and sorrow — to find that my Buddhist professor friend had recently died. The University of Hawaii Department of philosophy had an “In Memoriam” obituary of him, which included several insightful comments on his interpretation of early Buddhism. These comments included one on his definition of Nirvana.
Nirvana has always been a central term in Buddhism. According to the basic story of the life and teaching of the Buddha, there is something fundamentally unsatisfactory in human existence. It is people’s craving, attachment and desire. And the answer to that unsatisfactoriness is meditation in order to achieve the insight that is the solution to the problem. That insight the Buddha realized, and Buddhism calls it Nirvana.
Originally Nirvana, a term derived from the Sanskrit, meant simply “to blow out,” as a candle flame. In the original context its connotation was fairly clear. Through the insight achieved in meditation a person’s desires, cravings and attachments were quenched. The person became cool, to give Buddhist meaning to a term of today’s younger generation.
Buddhist discipline sometimes arranged for monks’ meditation to take place near a “charnel ground,” that is, near a cremation area, where monks were invited to get a realistic view of life by reviewing the makeup of the human body — bile, blood, urine, feces, tears, snot, bones, skin, etc. Such meditation was expected to cool their appetites, desires, and passions.
As Westerners encountered Buddhism and got attracted to it in modern times, Nirvana became an esoteric and mysterious term for them, sometimes with otherworldly connotations. Some Western interpreters of Buddhism thought Nirvana meant emptying the mind, seeking a psychological state, perhaps ecstasy, where one was thinking of nothing, or even not thinking. Such an interpretation is, of course, absurd, if not a contradiction.
In view of this mystification of the term in Western interpretation it was refreshing to read the clarification of Nirvana offered by Professor Kalupahana. He was an able scholar who knew Pali, Sanskrit, even Chinese, and had done his doctorate at the University of London. He said Nirvana “signified the ultimate achievement of freedom,” that is, “the capacity of human beings to realize their full potential.”
In one of his early (1975) books he wrote: “(Nirvana) is a state of perfect mental health … of perfect happiness … calmness or coolness … and stability … attainable in this life, or while one is alive.”
This clear explanation eliminates much of the needless mystification the term Nirvana has accumulated in the modern West. If my Buddhist friend is right, the Buddha was not talking about a metaphysical (beyond bodily existence) or otherworldly state of mind, but simply freedom from cravings, attachment and desire. [Source...!]
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