Nibbāna for our Challenged World

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The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on November 01, 2020. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Nibbāna for our Challenged World

Greetings. I'm just coming to the end of teaching a week-long retreat, which was quite nice for me, and so I have a little bit of the retreat energy or feeling in me. I'm also very aware that here in the United States, in just a couple of days, we have this big event of the election that has many people anxious and agitated.

With all this in mind, thinking about what I might talk about this morning, I'll talk about something which is a response to what's happening in the wider world. It is one of the core responses Buddhism has, and that is to talk about the ultimate goal of Buddhism, which is usually called Nibbāna^[1] (in English, it's Nirvana).

It's a very different topic than what I usually talk about before a national election. Usually, for the last seven presidential elections, I've talked about the ten qualities of a Dhamma Raja^[2], a ruler who rules by the Dhamma (the Dharma)—who rules with justice. Today, I don't think I want to do this.

The Divide Between Politics and Spiritual Freedom

There is in Buddhism often considered to be a divide, or maybe it's healthier to say a distinction, between the world of governing in politics and the world of spiritual freedom. Sometimes the gap between them is way too big and involves pulling away too far from being involved in the world. But that distinction is there, and that distinction arises not because Buddhists are pulling away from the world, but rather because the world is pulling away from freedom and from peace.

What Buddhism has at its center is a capacity or a potential to discover a kind of ultimate peace—a phenomenal peace deep down inside, deep within. It's a potential we all have, but it's seldom discovered because the mind is often too active. Often, that activity of the mind is to run after thoughts, ideas, and desires, or to be pushed around by aversions and things we don't like. In Buddhism, this is called cyclic existence^[3].

Sometimes it's considered cyclic in terms of multiple lives, but I don't think so much about multiple lives. I think about how, just in a day, the mind can cycle through, spin, and be caught up in a loop of wanting and not wanting that feeds itself. If we're worried and thinking about something, it makes us feel not so good. Often, a kind of self-alienation happens if we spend too much time being concerned and worried about things around us. That self-alienation makes for discomfort, and then that discomfort gives birth to more continuous caution, fear, and anxiety.

The same thing happens with desire. If we have too much desire—pursuing what we want, trying to get control of things, holding everything at bay, and trying to get things just right—it also leads to a kind of self-alienation that makes us feel off. One response to feeling off is to reach out for something that's going to comfort us or do something good for us. The more we go outside for our happiness and focus around us, the less we're in touch with what's here for us. People who are in a habit of being uncomfortable will go out, blame other things, want other things, and keep a cautionary eye out all the time to protect themselves.

This is understood to be a cyclic phenomenon that self-reinforces. We sometimes think, "If I just have that thing, then I'll be okay." Then we get the thing and find out we're not quite satisfied. Some people reach middle age or old age and realize that all these things they've been pursuing were important in some ways, but they didn't really satisfy a deeper yearning—a deeper feeling of connection to something much more important. Something is left out.

Cleansing the Mind in Nibbāna

Nibbāna is this coming to touch into what's being left out. It is touching into that place where we are not caught up in the loops and cycles of existence, of wanting and not wanting. It is the place where the mind can feel deeply safe, deeply contented, deeply at peace, and just at rest in itself. This is not pulling away from the world, but rather being in the world in a whole different way—a radically different way.

It's hard to understand that sometimes we have to step back from the world for a while to do this deep inner work so we can return in a way that Buddhism sometimes describes as a kind of rebirth. It's as simple as this: we sometimes take a shower to make ourselves much more pleasant for other people to be around. We withdraw, go into the bathroom, get ourselves clean, and then come back out. Most people don't complain that we've gone off to take a shower. To be showered in Nibbāna, to be showered in this peace, is a cleansing process. It cleanses us so that we can come back to the world cleaner and thereby be more beneficial for the people around us.

The Cessation of Greed, Hatred, and Delusion

Nibbāna is defined in the teachings of the Buddha as the ending of something—a definitive ending. Most specifically, it's the ending of all things motivated by compulsive desire (usually called greed, sometimes passion or lust), all things motivated by hostility (sometimes called hate—pushing things away and rejecting things), and all things rooted in delusion (being confused about things, having ideas that are not really true and projecting them onto others, the world, and ourselves)^[4]. The ending of projections, hostility, and compulsive desire is a possibility, and Nibbāna is defined as their definitive end.

It doesn't necessarily mean it's finished forever initially. There can be a provisional Nibbāna where, for a short period of time, a person has this very definitive, clear experience that these things have stopped. It's possible to have a mind that has really stopped. That's different than just them being paused or distracted, or going somewhere to sit under an oak tree in a park where everything kind of becomes peaceful and calm. That's all very nice, and you can say there's no greed, hate, and delusion in that moment, but Nibbāna is something that almost takes your breath away. You realize, "Oh, this has really come to an end. It stopped."

The highest goal in Buddhism is the ending of something. Sometimes the language is that of freedom: becoming free of bondage, attachments, clingings, and graspings. It is freedom from over-identification with anything, and freedom from anxiety. All these things—desire, greed, anxiety, delusion—have this quality of being self-perpetuating. There's a kind of authority in them, a desperation, a drive that says, "Here's where the answer is. This is what has to be done. Of course I have to get what I want. Of course I'm not going to be safe until I succeed. Of course I should push things away. Of course things should be blamed, because only then will the world behave. Of course I should be anxious because it's a frightening world to live in. Of course my projections and opinions are true."

I don't know if any of this characterizes you, but there's this compulsion, a sense of authority, a feeling that "It has to be now; this is important," and it overrides anything else. What it overrides is something that the tradition calls very subtle and very hard to see: the cessation of greed, hatred, and delusion. The cessation of anxiety.

The Metaphors of Fire and Light

Why it's hard to see and why it's subtle is because it's not a "thing" in the usual sense. It's not something you can clearly touch, see, focus your eyes on, or hear. It's an absence. In the release of attachments, clinging, and compulsions, there is the absence of greed, hate, and delusion. You can't quite see that, but you can feel the difference.

In the language of the Buddha, the metaphor for greed, hate, and delusion is fire. Fires burn and fires hurt. The release, the calming, the quieting, the going out of the fires is the going out of the very things that hurt us. This is difficult to understand and takes mindfulness: strong compulsive desire, compulsive hatred, and delusion are stressful to have. They are a kind of self-inflicted suffering and harm.

We start seeing this when we meditate and get calm and settled. We feel how the arising of aversion, hostility, and criticalness, or the arising of wanting something different, feels like a loss. There's a loss of intimacy, a loss of being deeply connected to ourselves, and a loss of peace. The quieting of the fires is sometimes called peace, but it's hard to appreciate that peace is important. Sometimes it can feel like it's selfish, or that we're going to abandon the world and just care about our own peace. Hopefully, it's the opposite.

While the metaphor for greed, hate, and delusion is fire, the metaphor for an awakened mind is light and illumination. A light usually doesn't hurt, unless it's too intense like looking at the sun. The particular light most often used as a metaphor for awakening is moonlight—the light of a full moon. It's sometimes referred to as a cool light or a glow. It's very pleasant, enjoyable, and peaceful to look at a full moon hanging peacefully in the sky. The fires of greed and delusion are replaced by the light of wisdom, the light of freedom, and the light of peace—the light of an awareness that's free.

Appreciating Beneficial Absence

That freedom can be felt, but it's very subtle. Without any drive to hold on to ideas, you can't quite touch this freedom or peace. It's a radical feeling of absence, and an absence is hard to appreciate.

However, it doesn't take much reflection to realize that our lives are filled with beneficial absences, where something is not there and we realize, "Oh, that's good." An example I taught yesterday was being late for a very important appointment. There's a lot of traffic, it's hot, and there's smog. You're stuck in gridlock traffic, watching the time tick by. You can clearly see you're going to be late. You're honking your horn, trying to zigzag around. There is a lot of stress because this meeting is so important.

Then, because you're stuck in traffic and can't move, you decide to look at your smartphone calendar. Lo and behold, you have the week wrong! The meeting is next week. The meeting you were expecting to go to that day doesn't exist. It's an absence. It's nowhere. It's not a thing, but boy, the absence of that meeting is the best news you've heard all day! Everything relaxes, everything softens, and you let go of all the stress and tension that built up. It's amazing to realize that all this tension arose around something that actually didn't exist; it was a fantasy of your mind through confusion about the dates. The absence of the meeting was really significant for your well-being.

The absence of greed, hate, and delusion is something like that. Sometimes what we have greed, hatred, and delusion about doesn't really exist, or the promise of what they're going to do for us doesn't exist. Many people have gotten what they wanted and thought, "Well, that was nice, but now I want more or something different."

Sometimes what we want is beneficial. This is a complex issue. Healthy things to want to change or get rid of are fine, but the way in which we want them or push them away can be unhealthy. The compulsion, the contraction, the tightening up, and the stress involved in wanting and not wanting—even for something appropriate—is deleterious. As we learn to let go of compulsive desire, hostility, and anxiety and experience this absence, we can learn how to pursue healthy desires in a healthy way. We can address things that should be stopped in a healthy way. There's no reason not to be energetically engaged in making the world a better place, but we must do it from a place devoid of compulsion.

For some people, that means the absence of living in expectations—even expectations of being successful. Of course, you do something, and if it doesn't work out, you address the situation and figure out what to do next. We do the best we can.

We sit in Buddhism ultimately to begin discovering the benefits of an absence. Through meditation, it's possible to become attuned to absences rather than presences. If we're always looking at what's present and wanting what's present to be just right, then we're always adjusting and dependent on things being a certain way. Things will change, and so it becomes a never-ending phenomenon of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic just to get everything right.

An absence is not a thing, and in a way, it is indestructible. You can lose touch with it, but it's not something we create, and it can't be destroyed or changed unless we get pulled into something else. The absence is more like the space in a large studio in which a dancer is free to move, which they could not do in a closet. The absence of greed, hate, and delusion in the mind and heart is where freedom resides. It allows for a lot of movement and a breath of fresh air.

As meditation gets more quiet and still, we begin tuning in and noticing whenever there's an absence. We might feel like we have breathing room and think, "Ah, this is good." It turns out there might be much more healthy, Nibbāna-like absence of compulsion in our lives than we realize. The reason we don't realize it is because the mind has a strong tendency to go on to the next thought, idea, desire, or aversion, always grabbing onto something. When we begin appreciating how things are absent—how right now there's an absence of strong desire, aversion, or projection—we can say, "Oh, this is nice," and instead of quickly jumping to the next thought, we can feel it and take it in. It's like having an open door in the heart or mind to start feeling these absences. Going into those open doors and into the greater spaciousness of stillness, silence, and freedom is truly a great thing.

Thirty-three Synonyms for Nibbāna

Nibbāna is often called the ending of greed, hate, and delusion. The word Nibbāna is sometimes translated as quenching or extinguishing, which doesn't always sound very inspiring, but it refers to the extinguishing of the fire that's burning us.

I want to end this talk with a list of thirty-three synonyms for Nibbāna^[5], and then say something about the distinction between the pursuit of Nibbāna and politics.

This list is often described as 33 synonyms for Nibbāna, but they are actually synonyms for the ending of greed, hate, and delusion. There's a teaching where all the passages are exactly the same, substituting one of these words. For example: "What is the uncreated? It is the ending of greed, hatred, and delusion." All these words are explained by the ending of greed, hatred, and delusion.

Listen to the emotional associations or inner feelings that come with each of these words. Allow yourself to receive them deeply. Perhaps put aside everything I've said so far just to hear each word:

• The Uncreated
• The Unbowed
• The Taint-free
• Truth
• The Other Shore
• Subtle
• Very Difficult to See
• Unaging
• Stable
• Not Disintegrating
• Without Attributes
• Undifferentiated
• Peaceful
• Not Dying
• Sublime
• Happy
• Tranquil
• The Ending of Craving
• Wonderful
• Amazing
• Health / Healthy
• Nibbāna
• Without Hostility
• Dispassion
• Purity
• Freedom
• Non-clinging
• The Island
• Safety
• Shelter
• Refuge
• The Destination

Some of those are very positive concepts and feelings. Nibbāna is understood to be one of the greatest experiences of happiness and peace a human being can have. To fulfill this potential, we have to end suffering. Nibbāna is ending the causes of suffering and the ways in which we harm ourselves from the inside out.

Bringing Freedom to the World

It's a phenomenal thing to discover this potential for a radical, deep sense of peace and happiness. I believe it's important that some people do the work to find the end of hostility, the end of the greed for power, the end of endless desires for consumption, and the end of all the delusions, projections, bias, racism, and prejudice that exist in our world. To fully discover that these things can be put to rest, and to know that this is a birthright and potential we all have, is profound. Otherwise, we'll think we just have to constantly be bumping into each other—my desire against your desire, my aversion against yours—always trying to deal with some conflict.

It is possible to come to a place where we can live in the world without conflict and without being the source of conflict. Knowing that it's possible to be deeply free of suffering is what most people are looking for: happiness, safety, refuge, and peace. Discovering that this can be found inside creates a very different context for our political and public life.

I hope that as the United States goes through whatever it goes through over the next weeks, months, and years, we can respond wisely, caringly, and supportively for the people around us and for the country as a whole. May we never take recourse to hostility, the lust for power, or the delusions and projections of "self versus other" that are so endemic and painful in our society right now.

May we drop deep down inside to have enough experience of freedom from greed, hostility, and delusion that we can engage in our civic responsibilities without those three things motivating our behavior. In doing so, we are able to work in this world for a better world, without anxiety.

What a gift we will be to others if we can work for a better world while simultaneously showing people that it's possible to be happy and to live without anxiety, hostility, and greed! This is probably the greatest benefit we can give another person, more than any material gain. To discover this infinite freedom and peace inside is the great thing. Nibbāna for this world is freedom from greed, hatred, and delusion.

Thank you very much. I hope you give some thought to this message about the possibility of being involved with civic work and making this a better world without anxiety and without hostility. May that be contagious. May that be what spreads across the lands. Thank you.