Nirvana Dharma Mark

Nirvana Dharma Mark
JUL/15/ 2023— JUL / 16/ 2023

Hello everyone, welcome to our Dharma talk at Dharma Rain Meditation Center.

In the last three weeks, we talked about the contents of the three marks of Dharma, the significance of the cultivation and religious, and discussed the connections between the three marks of Dharma and the Buddhist origins and how to verify real by three marks of Dharma. Today we are going to the last chapter of this topic, which is nirvana and tranquility.

When it comes to ” Whatever is phenomenal is ephemeral, essential universal Dharma contain no ego-self”, we can find many examples. However when it comes to “Nirvana and tranquility”, it seems beyond our imagination.

What is nirvana and tranquility?

Nirvana, Pali (NIBBANA) means tranquility, also known as perfect quenching. “Nie” is not production and not destroyed; have all kinds of virtues means prefect,getting rid of Karmic obstacles means tranquility, so Nirvana’s and tranquility has a non-production and non-extinction, prefect tranquility meaning . There are four kinds of nirvana:
First, self-nature nirvana: all sentient beings, all have buddha’s nature which is their own nature and sensibility. It is non-production and non-extinction. Self-nature is not born from physical body, nor destroyed by the the death. Before your life is formed, it was there; it is the same after you were born; even after you dead, it has no change. It is not produced,not destroyed,not defiled, not pure; and neither increases nor diminishes. this is self-nature Nirvana.

Second, fragmentary Nirvana(sa-upādisesa-nibbānadhātu): it is the condition that Hinayan attained. They believe that there is a Dharma to cultivate, to beyond life and death, beyond the self-center, however, they stuck on the Dharma-center. In our cultivation, from the obsessed to enlightened, from the ordinary people to the arhat, Bodhisattva and Buddha is the transformation of different realms just like from birth to death then reborn. This change is in the intention rather than physical change, it is incomplete and can not release from birth and death, so it was called fragmentary Nirvana.

Third, complete Nirvana: (anupādisesa-nibbānadhātu), because the five accumulations have been completely abandoned then attained the real Nirvana.

Fourth, dwell nowhere Nirvana. There is a question here: when we are alive, we believe we live on our physical body, there must always be a sustenance, and we can’t help to think: what if I can not breath anymore can I settle down? People who focus on pure-land cultivation often say: “We will go to the Western Paradise we dead, we can rely on Amitabha, we have a place to go.” So if I am practicing Zen, where should I go after this-life? This is a big question for Buddhists. If we can clarify this issue, it is easier to understand the Buddhist classics sutras, because the Buddha’s teaching is to solve birth and death.
As mentioned above, Nirvana is the tranquility from the nature dharma, that is, see the truth of dharma, or enlighten the non-duality dharma gate.This was an incredible realm of Buddha and Bodhisattva. We can not describe with any language, because language can only express the things and principles that human beings experience, and Nirvana is beyond human experience. Just as you can not talk about the ice world with a butterfly from summer, the ordinary people can’t figure out the sages’ realm. No matter how precise it is, it is not the reality of Nirvana. Like pointing to the moon, the month is visible by the finger, but the finger is obviously not the moon.

For example, people often use “permanent” to describe Nirvana. The “permanent” was originally from those who surpassed the timeliness and kept tranquility. This is completely different from the “permanent” that from ordinary people. However, the less wise man does not distinguish this, they have their concept of time and relative, they use them to set the world on the impermanence side and Nirvana in the permanence side. They believe that nirvana outside of this world. They don’t know that the worldly Dharmas reveal nirvana. Nirvana is the reality of this world, without the world and phase, can we find anything Nirvana.

We often hear the teachings of the Buddha: “Nirvana is the break of Tanha. Tanha is why sentient beings create the bad karma and suffer from the results and suffer from birth until death.If we cut off all our Tanha, nothing can bond us and threaten us, we will eventually release from the birth and death and attain Nirvana eventually. As long as we attained the Nirvana, we get rid of desire, we never create the causes of the birth and death, do not mention the other karma.

Nirvana is not something “existing”. Existing must be the existence that has an origin, must contains birth and death part. If Nirvana is something existing, it is necessary to have its extinction, in other words, there will be an old and death phase which follows the circle of birth and death. How can Nirvana be like this?
Nirvana is not “something not existing”. Not existing is established by existing. “Existing” is due to the karma and the combinations Nidana, and “Not existing” is also caused by the karma and Nidana. However, Nirvana is non produced and non-extinction, no Tanha and no bond.

Many people tend to regard Nirvana as the eternal existence and dismissed the all the Nidana. In fact, these understandings of Nirvana involve the question of what will happen after Nirvana. For those questions, the Buddha actually didn’t answer, because it is not necessary and there is no answer for the human being. Nirvana is beyond the experience of the world, how can we talk about after the Nirvana when we didn’t attain it? Just like someone ask that the hair of tortoise and the rabbit horn is soft or hard, actually nobody see those things in the world, then what’s the point to discuss it? There is a famous ” arrow metaphor sutra ” in the Agama, which records that once an honed boy asked the Buddha that the world is eternal or not, limited or infinite, and if Buddha still exist in this world, etc. Buddha blamed him and said to his disciples: “If stupid people are saying that unless the Buddha tells me that the world is eternal and not eternal or I will not follow his teachings, he will die before I clearly explained everything to him.” It is just like someone who is hurt by a poisoned arrows and suffering. The relatives ask for a surgery, the person said: Don’t pull out the arrows, I have to know what kind of feathers this arrow is made of and what kind of metal made arrow head: the man will die before he got the answer. I have never said that the world is eternal and not eternal. This question does not respond to the Dharma, not the origin of pure practice, not benefit the wisdom, not benefit the enlightenment, not benefit the nirvana. I want to talk about the suffering origination, cessation and path, those are responds for the Dharma, the origin of pure practice, those benefit the wisdom, benefit the enlightenment, benefit the nirvana.”

After all, Nirvana is to be attained by the wise people like your guys here, those guess are nothing but wasting your time. We should be brave and eager to cultivate the Buddhism. We will eventually find it by our true-self because we know that every sentient being will surely attain the Nirvana and become a Buddha!

Thank you for the listening!