Nirvāṇa

Nirvāṇa (Pali nibbāna) means “blowing out” or “extinguishing”, as of a fire. It names the goal of the Buddhist path: the extinction of the fires of greed, hatred and delusion, and with them of suffering and rebirth. The early texts distinguish nirvāṇa attained in life, while the aggregates remain, from final nirvāṇa (parinirvāṇa) at death.

The texts are notably reticent about what nirvāṇa is. They describe it chiefly by negation, as unborn, unmade, unconditioned, and the Buddha refused to say whether the awakened one exists after death, does not, both or neither. Western interpreters in the nineteenth century often read nirvāṇa as annihilation; most scholars now regard that as a misreading, since what is extinguished is craving, not a self that never existed.

Mahāyāna texts add new perspectives: a non-abiding nirvāṇa, in which the buddha remains active for beings, and Nāgārjuna’s claim that there is not the slightest difference between saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, since both are empty.