What Nirvāṇa Is Not

And further, if you say that nirvāṇa is simply the present-tense absence of the five aggregates — this does not hold. Why? Because non-existence is non-existence. If a dharma is present, it is not non-existent, since the two directly contradict one another; if a dharma has already ceased, it is not present — for if it were present, it could not yet have ceased, since existence and non-existence cannot coincide. Furthermore, at the very moment one cultivates the noble path by relying on the present aggregates, one ought not to attain nirvāṇa at all. The eightfold noble path is accomplished by depending on the present five aggregates — and at that very moment, the present five aggregates truly exist and are not yet absent, so there could, in this case, never be any sense of attaining nirvāṇa. How is this so? You have posited that nirvāṇa means the absence of the present five aggregates. Yet it is precisely by relying on the present five aggregates that one cultivates the eightfold noble path and thereby attains nirvāṇa — so your position does not hold. If you say that, at that moment, the afflictions are simply not present, and so no fault follows, this too does not hold. If you say that, at the time one cultivates the eightfold noble path, the five aggregates are present, then the afflictions would have to be not present at that very time, since afflictions cannot arise then. But to say that nirvāṇa is attained in the present, by means of realizing and seeing through the eightfold noble path, does not hold either. Why? Because if the afflictions were, from the start, simply not present, cultivating the path would serve no purpose — yet, at the time one cultivates the noble path, these very afflictions have not yet been removed. You see that they are "not corresponding" to the mind at that moment, and on this basis call them "not present" — but this runs contrary to the actual order of events. At the very start of practice, the afflictions have already ceased to correspond to the mind — and this "non-correspondence," on your reading, would already be "not present," which is exactly what you take to be nirvāṇa. If you insist that this is nirvāṇa, then, before the noble path had even arisen, the affliction would already have to be extinguished, and nirvāṇa already attained — in which case the subsequent cultivation of the noble path would serve no further purpose at all. So the claim that the eightfold noble path is what extinguishes the afflictions and attains nirvāṇa cannot be sustained on this reading — hence we know that a mere place where afflictions have ceased is not what is called nirvāṇa.

If you say that, on the authority of the sages' own words, the utter extinction of desire and the rest is what is called nirvāṇa — as the Maṅgala Sūtra says in verse: "Utter extinction and freedom from desire, the deathless, subtle and sublime — whoever sees this teaching attains buddhahood and quiescent extinction. No dharma equals this; whoever realizes it has no more sorrow; this is the true and wondrous jewel of the Dharma — for this reason it is called auspicious" — and if you say that desire and the like being not present, not existent, and utterly extinguished together constitute what is named the truth of cessation, this does not hold. Why? Because this would be the same error as wrongly identifying the fourth fruit of arhatship with mere cessation. The Buddhist scriptures ask: what is called the fruit of arhatship? It is called the fruit of arhatship because the afflictions of the three realms are extinguished. But to take the mere extinction of desire as the fruit itself is, in truth, not correct — properly speaking, it is the supramundane resultant body of the mental aggregates together with morality and the rest that constitutes the fruit of arhatship; it is only because affliction has been extinguished that the fruit of arhatship comes to be accomplished, and so, within the fruit, this causal name is spoken of. Nirvāṇa is exactly the same: it is because of nirvāṇa that the afflictions come to be extinguished — hence, within the cause, the name of the fruit is spoken of. For this reason, your claim does not hold as you have construed it.

Furthermore, if the dharmakāya were merely this cessation, it would incur three faults — brief duration, being a conditioned mark, and not being attained through effort — and your position would collapse under them. First, brief duration: dharmas perish moment by moment, and this is called "utter extinction" — being utter extinction, it cannot abide even briefly. How, then, can you posit this extinction as the dharmakāya? Because of its brief duration, it loses the sense of the dharmakāya's permanence. Second, the fault of being a conditioned mark: if this extinction were the dharmakāya, the dharmakāya would then be a conditioned mark — and there is no basis for the dharmakāya to be a conditioned mark. Third, the fault of not requiring effort: every dharma, when it ceases dependent on causes and conditions, does so by its own nature, since cessation is simply the basic tendency of things. If cessation is attained without any effort, then the dharmakāya, too, would be attained without effort — but if it could be attained effortlessly, then even sleep or drunken stupor ought equally to attain nirvāṇa. On account of these three faults, your position cannot stand. Furthermore, if utter extinction were nirvāṇa, it would then correspond to every conditioned dharma, since this "extinction" would share both the marks of instability and suffering that belong to conditioned things. Every conditioned dharma is, in every case, burned by the fire of desire and its afflictions, and hence is constantly restless and unstable, and is destroyed by aging and death — hence it is constantly suffering. As the Buddha said: "Monks! Birth, aging, and death are conditioned dharmas." Hence every conditioned thing constantly burns and constantly suffers. This "death" is precisely utter extinction, and this utter extinction is precisely a conditioned thing. If it is conditioned, then we know that your proposed dharmakāya cannot be permanent. And if it is not permanent, how can your position possibly stand? Why? Because your position would then be reckoning the very stillest as motion, and the very blissful as suffering — and this cannot be right.

If you say that nirvāṇa is this single cessation after which there is never any further arising — this does not hold either. Why? Because it does not escape the very faults just described. Your claim of "permanent cessation" would make no distinction between birth-and-death's own cessation and any other cessation — this cannot be right. If you say that permanent cessation is nirvāṇa, then even the ordinary functioning of the path itself would have to become nirvāṇa. Why? Because there is, in fact, no such thing as a cessation that never again gives rise to anything — no such dharma exists; but suppose, for the sake of argument, I grant your position — even so, it could never escape the faults already described. Moreover, once the path has extinguished affliction, the afflictions do not arise again either — so if you hold that this permanent cessation is nirvāṇa, then the mere cessation of the path's own function would have to be nirvāṇa. And further, if you say that what does the extinguishing is itself nirvāṇa, then there would be no separate nirvāṇa apart from this extinguishing function — it would be solely the function of the path that truly does the extinguishing, and so we would have to conclude that the very substance of the path itself must be capable of extinguishing itself.

If you say that the non-arising of affliction is nirvāṇa — this does not hold either. Why? Because it cannot escape two faults. If the affliction simply does not arise, this is the same in substance as utter extinction, and incurs the same faults already described concerning death and cessation. As for this "non-arising": does it occur before the path, or after it? If before, then, even prior to cultivating the path, one ought already to have attained it, and cultivating the path would serve no purpose. If after, then it belongs to the future — and this fails to establish any coherent relation to the three times at all. And further, what exactly do you mean by positing "non-arising"? Is it non-arising because affliction exists, or non-arising because affliction does not exist? If affliction exists, then there is no non-arising at all. Why? Because existence and non-existence cannot occupy the same place at the same time — just as a person cannot be both moving and standing still at once. Hence we know that, so long as affliction is present, "non-arising" cannot be established. And if you posit "non-arising" on the basis that affliction is absent, then, affliction already being absent at that point, with respect to what would "non-arising" even be asserted? It would be like saying that the daughter of a barren woman cannot bear a child.

Furthermore, when you posit that the non-arising of affliction is your nirvāṇa, is this non-arising itself something that exists as a thing, or something that does not exist as a thing? If it exists as a thing, then, like the four great elements and other really existing dharmas, it would be conventionally designated as an existing thing. If it does not exist as a thing, then, like sky-flowers or a rabbit's horns, understood to be simply non-existent, it would be said not to exist as a thing at all. If you say it exists as a thing, then it must be accomplished by the four kinds of conditions — and if so, the sense of "non-arising" cannot be established, for there would then be no difference at all between the conditioned and the unconditioned. If you say it exists as a thing yet is not accomplished by the four conditions, this is exactly the same as the wrong view held by non-Buddhists who attach to self-nature, atoms, self, time, and space as uncaused. And if this "non-existent thing" is what nirvāṇa is, then it is nothing more than a name — like someone speaking of a rabbit's horn as "sharp." If this is so, it falls under exactly the same refutation as before, and cultivating the path would serve no purpose at all.

Outsider: "If you do not take non-arising to be nirvāṇa, then why does the Buddha say that non-arising and utter extinction are nirvāṇa?" Answer: "The path, by depending on nirvāṇa, is able to make future afflictions not arise and present ones cease — the cause is here spoken of in terms of the fruit, and hence nirvāṇa is called 'non-arising and utter extinction.'" Outsider: "Why speak of the fruit using the name of its cause, rather than taking the fruit's own essence and naming it directly?" Answer: "Because it is utterly subtle. Among all dharmas, there is nothing more subtle than nirvāṇa — hence, when this dharma is attained, all afflictions such as desire are extinguished and never arise again, and so this coarser name is provisionally borrowed to point toward the subtle principle."

Question: "How do we know that this nirvāṇa is utterly subtle?" Answer: "Because the Great Sage was reluctant to teach the Dharma at all, and because it is known only by the sages' own non-discriminating wisdom. The Teacher, observing that nirvāṇa is utterly subtle, and observing that sentient beings' own faculties did not match it, therefore inclined his mind toward stillness and entering nirvāṇa, and had no wish to teach the Dharma — hence the sūtra says: 'I would rather not teach the Dharma, and swiftly enter nirvāṇa.' As for its being known only by non-discriminating sagely wisdom: as the sūtra says, 'World-Honored One! If nirvāṇa truly exists, then, having sharp and clear intelligence of my own, why do I not see it?' The Buddha replied: 'Nirvāṇa truly exists — it is only because you have not yet attained non-discriminating sagely wisdom that you cannot see it.' Because it is subtle, it cannot be attained through the wisdom of hearing; because it is real, it cannot be attained through the wisdom of reflection, which, though able to penetrate both the ultimate and conventional truths, cannot encompass the wondrous principle's realm beyond all thought. Because it is utterly profound, it cannot be attained through the wisdom of mundane cultivation, which attains only shallow principles. It is because this subtlety cannot be expressed in words at all that a coarser name is borrowed to point toward the wondrous principle."

Outsider: "If nirvāṇa is something attained through cultivating the path, then it is not shared in common with a person who has not yet cultivated the path — and, not being shared in common, it must be impermanent." Answer: "Impermanence could only be said of something that is absent up to a certain point and then present afterward. Since this is not the case, we say there is no arising even at the earlier point. If you say that, because it cannot be attained before cultivating the path, there is therefore no such thing as 'non-arising' — this does not hold. Why? Because nirvāṇa is not, in fact, produced by the path at all. This dharma must be reached by means of the path, but the path does not generate it — hence, even before it is cultivated, one cannot say nirvāṇa is absent, and so the sense of 'non-arising' is established. Having no later boundary, it likewise has no cessation. And having, in the interim, no karma or affliction, it has no change either. Because it is free of these three faults — arising, alteration, and cessation — it is said to be permanently abiding, and this is not at all the same as the non-Buddhists' calling something 'permanent' merely because it is uncaused."

The correct position does not take "having no cause" as itself what makes a dharma permanent — nirvāṇa merely happens, additionally, not to arise from a cause. You suppose that atoms, too, are permanent because they are equally uncaused — but this is not so. Why? Because nirvāṇa is apart from both existence and non-existence, beyond the reach of the four kinds of denial, and it is precisely because it does not arise from a cause that it is permanent. Your atoms, however, you hold to actually exist — and, existing, they cannot be without a cause; and having a cause, they must be impermanent. If you say that nirvāṇa is permanent because it is free of the three faults, and atoms too are free of the three faults, and are therefore equally permanent — this does not hold. Why? Because the mark by which you would prove this cannot itself be established. Nirvāṇa's permanence does not share the same mark as, nor differ in mark from, atoms — atoms involve discrimination, and so no proof of their permanence can be established, while nirvāṇa is free of discrimination, and so nirvāṇa's permanence, unlike that of atoms, can indeed be established. Furthermore, atoms themselves cannot even be established, since they cannot be established either singly or in aggregate: taken singly, the sense fails, since the four great elements cannot be separated from one another; taken in aggregate, this too fails, since an aggregate is coarse, and is therefore no longer, properly speaking, an atom at all. Apart from nirvāṇa, there is no other dharma at all that is permanently abiding. Nirvāṇa truly exists as permanent, since liberation is attained by means of skillful means, and cultivating the path does not pass by in vain. Having no beginning point, we know it is permanent. Being beyond the mark of form, it is said to be formless; yet, not being apart from qualities such as coolness, it is said to be not non-form either. Being attained only by the great functioning of non-discriminating wisdom, it is said to be truly existent. Being attained by the buddhas through the path accomplished by supreme, supramundane diligence, we know it is truly real. As the sūtra says: "Monks! This dharma truly exists — unborn, unarisen, unmade, unconditioned." Hence we know that nirvāṇa is truly permanent. This dharma is the Tathāgata's transformed basis — and it is for this reason that the mark of total inclusion is concluded, also called correspondence.