Nirvana Is Easy

Discussion in 'Buddhism' started by Chodpa, May 29, 2017.

  1. Chodpa

    Chodpa Senior Member

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    some common thoughts about nirvana that people who look into buddhism have include sadness. people think cessation is sad. also people think nirvana happens once and for all time. you reach nirvana, and your journey is ended.

    but nirvana is not the end of the path. and nirvana is not sad. nirvana is called 'exhaustion of phenomena' in tibetan buddhism and speaks to a state where things reach their end and cease. since the world itself never ceases, what does cease is mostly thought. and nirvana is a place where thoughts give up their energy and cease, mostly through and during meditation.

    usually people follow threir thoughts and expend great energy on them, even when those thoughts have no especial purpose or value. or in other words, thoughts of envy, hate, lust, and so on. thoughts of fantasy, pining, jonesing, feeling anxious, depressed. lots of energy goes into these thoughts.

    if one has observed a meditation practice (which is a necessary prelude to exhaustion of phenomena, or nirvana) then one has watched how thoughts naturally always arise, but instead of expending more energy following and nourishing thoughts one has allowed thoughts to arise and then cease automatically. thoughts do cease naturally the same way they arise naturally, if you allow them.

    nirvana therefore is a natural process. and doesn't take energy, rather it improves energy by freeing the mind of waste.

    nirvana increases awareness by replacing ones mental energy on the container of thought rather than the thought itself.

    nirvana happens by small bits and pieces.

    there comes a time after much meditation when one doesn't add more karma to the whole chain of causation - oh yeah, people run around always putting more energy into everything, much of which is bad, pain producing, selfish, and which produces more bondage.

    after meditation practice of many years there comes a time where one also allows action to flow through one, and actions, ones own and others arise naturally, and one also allows action naturally to cease by not putting more energy. yes, nirvana occurs in action too.

    one expends energy to follow their own will instead of the willfulness of the moment, or of others.

    just as thought liberated during meditation automatically returns energy to the source of thought, now also action ceases naturally and returns energy to the source of action.

    nirvana is easy, it takes less than effort. effort expending on nirvana is energy wasted. nirvana is natural.

    people from birth are taught to run, never to sit, they are taught to do research amongst others, never to be, and find truth within. the only effort to finding nirvana is turning around from what the entire world teaches and being quite simply oneself
     
    Monkey Boy likes this.
  2. Deidre

    Deidre Visitor

    I'm not sure if it's ''easy,'' because it requires an emptying of self, to a degree. And, that takes time. Not clinging to the things of this life, or even people in our lives. This doesn't mean we shouldn't get close to people or fall in love. It just means that true nirvana will become a path of enlightenment for anyone who doesn't live as a slave to their desires. I studied Buddhism after I left Christianity a few years ago, and think that much of it is so life changing in a good way.
     
  3. Monkey Boy

    Monkey Boy Senior Member

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    Nirvana means to snuff out. So you're not driven by pleasure, fear, desires or emotions that come and go. You can clearly understand yourself and what you want making logical decisions about events as they arise in a peaceful way.
     
    Deidre likes this.

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