I’ve been trying to understand what happens to consciousness or awareness when someone fully attains Nirvana. From what I gather, Nirvana is described as the end of suffering and the cessation of the cycle of rebirth. But I’m unclear on whether this also means that all forms of consciousness or awareness whether in a physical body or any other 'purified' or 'disembodied' form come to a complete end. Is it correct to say that after Nirvana, there is no remaining experience, presence, or awareness in any sense? Or is this question itself based on a misunderstanding of what Nirvana actually is?

As far as I know, many practitioners in the mahayana tradition have claimed to reach buddhahood and nirvana, since Sakyamuni. Is this non-abiding in nirvana? It would explain how prominent Buddhists have in the past been identified with celestial bodhisattvas. If so, would they nevertheless have reached final nirvana, on death?

If someone at their deathbed feels like they lived a good enough life and don't need anything anymore, then they ceased carving right? Did they become Buddhas? Their last mindstream's moment will not be conditioned by craving, so no rebirth right?

Sokushinbutsu Sokushinbutsu (即身仏) are a kind of Buddhist mummy. In Japan, the term refers to the practice of Buddhist monks observing asceticism to the point of death and entering mummification while alive. Mummified monks are seen in a number of Buddhist countries. Only in Japan are they believed to have induced their own death by starvation. There is a common suggestion that Shingon school founder Kukai brought this practice from Tang China as part of secret tantric practices he learned. During the 20th century, **Japanese scholars found very little evidence of self-starvation of Sokushinbutsu.** Emperor Meiji banned this practice in 1879, and assisted suicide—including religious suicide—is now illegal. It says **self-starvation** and **death by starvation**. So does it considered "Nirvana"? What would Buddha's aspect of self-mummification be?

I have been meditating intensively according to the Advaita tradition where self inquiry is practiced till realizing that I and effort are just feelings and that the watcher of even identity is the true self which isn't a phenomena that manifests. 2 days ago I had what I felt as a near death experience ,or maybe a great death of the ego ,at night I suddenly had an awakening in trance where there was a clear seeing of the "I" that I thought was me,then I woke up with a vibration feeling in my head and after lying on my back I suddenly felt as if a light was going to replace me as the identity of the body and me that I thought was my identity all my life was just an idea that was going to be replaced by that light ,I couldn't accept that happening and chose to stay as myself, and I actually cried cause I felt that I was going to die, not realizing that this "I" was more intimate that expected . Is this a paranormal experience or is it actually how enlightenment should occur ?

Is the emptiness of final nirvana an illusion? ------------------------------------------- When we misplace a box with nothing at all inside we haven't really lost its contents. I am convinced, based on this, *nothingness is only really inside things that exist*. Meaning at final nirvana, the conventional self, which *really no longer consists of anything at all*, is *really composed of absolutely nothing*, must **exist and have no parts**. Final nirvana does still arise, but the Buddha continues to exist, so emptiness, partite lack of substance, is an illusion. I'd like a Buddhist wide quote with sound reasoning.

This what I read part of heart sutta states; So, in emptiness, there is no body, no feeling, no thought, no will, no consciousness. There are no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. There is no seeing, no hearing, no smelling, no tasting, no touching, no imagining. There is nothing seen, nor heard, nor smelled, nor tasted, nor touched, nor imagined. apparently it is about the death of being to me.Also this description perfectly match and experience in coma or unconsciousness state of an individual. can I get proper and profound explanation for above?

As we know people who stay in coma or unconsciousness "experience" timeless,space-less, absolute emptiness and total detachment from physical world. Even though I used the word "experience" will not suitable to describe the situation in coma or unconsciousness state. It is a condition with no happiness or sorrow, no pain,no darkness or light,no noise or sound etc....and finally we can say "unconditional state of mind." and closer to description of "Nirvana" 1. what happen when person die during the coma or unconsciousness state? 2. Is this similar to Nirvana? (as total detachment of world.)

Is there a sutta which answers where a nirvanaised consciousnesses is after death and comapres it to a fire going out? I thought there was, but can't find it. Sounds like Vacchagota mashed up with the fire sermon . I'm asking because I like the image, and it almost appears in some modernist poetry. Failing a sutta, any zen discourses. Failing that, anywhere in the canon. Failing that, any important Buddhist, living or dead. Failing that an academic.

I found a rather compelling critique on the Internet and would like to ask you to answer this. He probably misunderstood dukkha, however, he is somewhat right on the nihilism aspect of buddhism. In the end, not being reborn is the goal so why should one act benevolently? I know it sounds stupid but I would like to have a sensible rationale why buddhists then practise loving kindness etc? There is the link: [A Critique of Buddhism by Benjamin Studebaker](https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2013/08/23/a-critique-of-buddhism/) >Nirvana is the state of enlightenment in which one is freed from desire (and thus suffering). One who has achieved nirvana no longer reincarnates. When one who has achieved nirvana dies, said individual ceases to be entirely. > >However, there are two ways to deal with desire–one way is, as Buddhism suggests, to eliminate it. The other is to actually achieve what you desire, to get what you want. There are entire moral theories that suppose that desire satisfaction is the principle source of good. So though desire may be the source of suffering, it may also in turn be the principle source of goodness. How else can we be benevolent toward others other than by helping them to get the things they want or ought to want? The benevolent behavior Buddhists are encouraged to engage in via the eightfold path seems to require that they fulfill the desires of others. How can the path to enlightenment entail leading others away from enlightenment? It’s contradictory. > >The next trouble I have is with the third noble truth (and, consequently, with the fourth), the belief that desire (and thus suffering) can be altogether eliminated. To eliminate desire altogether would eliminate not merely suffering, it would eliminate happiness, as happiness is the product of satisfying our desires. In order for it to be possible to eliminate desire, we would have to actively pursue an entirely neutral mental state. And how could we pursue such a mental state without, on some level, desiring that mental state itself? > >Even more importantly, if we are not desiring anything, if we are in a perpetually neutral state, are we really alive in any meaningful sense? Does not life entail pursuits of some kind or another? The man without any goals or dreams is a man already in the grave. Yet that does indeed seem to be the goal of Buddhism–those who achieve nirvana cease to reincarnate and cease to be. So the goal of Buddhism does seem to be well and truly non-existence. This leads to a very disturbing contradiction. The point of life, according to Buddhism, is to achieve permanent death. > >In which case, doesn’t Buddhism imply that we ought not to create life in the first place? If all beings that are alive are beset with desires and suffering until they achieve nirvana, and most beings never achieve nirvana, isn’t creating life an overwhelmingly harmful activity? Yet Buddhism does not explicitly oppose childbirth anywhere that I can see, and it certainly doesn’t advocate for the humane killing of other beings in order to eliminate the suffering that goes with life for most of them. > >But perhaps, in order to achieve permanent death, we have to do behave benevolently toward others for some length of time. But what meaning does this benevolence have if all of these other beings are themselves best off permanently dead in a state of non-existence? How can we be good to someone whose life’s purpose is not to be happy but to achieve death? > >There is a stench of nihilism about all of this. All human projects are the result of desire, so Buddhism negates all human projects. At the same time, Buddhism maintains that we should behave benevolently toward one another, but if benevolence consists of making others happy and happiness for others means achieving their projects and humans having projects is the source of human suffering, then being benevolent under Buddhism consists of preventing people from achieving their rightly considered life purpose, the achievement of permanent death. And how could we all simultaneously attempt to achieve permanent death when doing so involves sating one another’s desires that we have all mutually committed to eradicate? In the end, all of this must be resolved one way or the other–the contradiction is too strong. > >Either Buddhism is a nihilist theory, in which life’s only purpose is its end, or Buddhism is a moral theory of how we should treat each other, in which case Buddhism’s methodology for eliminating suffering is not really about desire, but is really just about being nice to other people. In the latter case, either Buddhism is mistaken about what suffering is, or Buddhism is mistaken about whether or not it can be eliminated or ought to be eliminated. > >In sum, it just doesn’t hold together. While desires lead to suffering, they also lead to happiness if we can manage to achieve them. The entire human project has, for thousands of years, been about improving the human condition by achieving human goals. Buddhism rejects the very idea that human beings ought to have projects or goals that they desire to achieve, and in so doing, Buddhism (as I’ve understood it) denies the human project. If that’s not nihilism, I don’t know what is.

How can we evaluate which description of nirvana is accurate? Also what problems does King Millinda point out about nirvana in his 80th dilemma?

Seongcheol 's parinirvana gatha reads: > Deceiving people all my life, my sins outweigh Mount Sumeru. > > Falling into hell alive, my grief divides into ten thousand pieces. > > Spouting forth a red wheel, > > It hangs on the blue mountain. Has anyone written about what this means? I see that Seongcheol had this explanation > I've lived my entire life as a practitioner, and people have always > asked me for something. Everyone is already a Buddha, but they do not > try to realize that fact and only look towards me. So, in a way, you > could say I've deceived people all my life. I've failed to get this > message across to everyone so I'm suffering in a kind of hell. But I wonder if it is definitive? You read people who think it's an admission that he's wasted his "entire life", whereas I thought it could be a statement about "saving all sentient beings".

I heard that when we settle our mind and focus in one thing, if we meditate we can go to Nirvana. In Buddha's time and many centuries after, people went to nirvana. So my question is, is it possible in this present time if we do all of these things: is it possible go to Nirvana?

Allow me to take you on a little detour through Heidegger? He claims that "my death" is inalienably mine: that no one can die my death for me. I think this means that "my death" never arrives... That may sound weird, but if we view death as a complete extinction of the "person" or whatever makes them up, then the empirical instant that death begins necessarily goes unnoticed - as in I can have no cognition of "my death" or by proxy the time it occurs. **i.e.** It cannot be said that the event of my death is in any way only empircally real for me (because such a quality would never arrive): but who else dies for me? Which of course *isn't very Buddhist*... But it does make me wonder if a similar thing can be said about nirvanic extinction? Or is the true self of a Buddha his or her nirvana, such that it can be said the Buddha is no more, just not that he or she reached it?

I read that the buddha had not wrote anything. He was used to speak Magadha language. Then sanskrit and pali language appeared when his disciples wrote down his life & experiences. I have already asked a question on language. This time i have a question that states 'why buddha didn't wrote anything ?'.

Does every tradition, especially ones descended from the lotus sutra and the Buddha's immeasurable life, claim that parinirvana is a conventional existent? Assuming that it's not a dharma, I don't know.