Comment to '2 Types of Buddhist Enlightenment'
  • Hello! In answer to your query......Firstly, I am not a senior in any respect. I think those who practice and study are worthy of being senior but I hardly study and I don't remember most of what I read or hear in talks. I soak in the words as I read or listen and then it is gone. I feel my way through the practice and I lean on noble teachers. It has been enough to make some progress.

    Regarding nirvanna. Here is a simple, basic definition:

    nirvana is the total cutting off of clinging and craving

    10 years ago I asked Ajahn Chaiya what nibbana was. He said:

    you don't go anywhere and you don't become anyone

    Ajahn Suchart often says that nibanna is the "knowing element." I asked him in a zoom, "what is it like when the lamp goes out". He said that suffering goes out and the mind is radiant, happy and peaceful. He said there is merely knowing and that one experiences the bliss of jhana all the time. I commented that I was expecting a more mystical experience and he said it is the absence of greed, hatred and delusion. Just that.

    Another time when I asked Ajahn Suchart about emptiness states he indicated that what is written in Buddhist texts about emptiness might be different from the actual experience of these states.

    Buddha's path is the ultimate of simplicity. My first instruction from Ajahn Chaiya was to focus on the breath and stay in the present moment. If the mind wandered into the past or the future, I was to go back to breath focus. I said: That's it? He replied: That's it. It is, however, very difficult and a great accomplishment, to continuously stay in the present moment because the mind, by nature, wanders.

    You asked:

    So, have they reinvented or readapted oringal nirvana (complete extinguishment) to state of no compulsive rebirths in this world or sensous worlds and mastering absolute sense control?

    I don't think so. Complete extinguishment does not include extinguishment of the "knowing element." Complete extinguishment means total eradication of greed, hatred, delusion, ignorance, clinging, craving, aversion, attachment, just to list all the commonly used terms. When these "go out" there is no possibility of compulsive rebirth anywhere. All the supports of sense identity are gone. This is the state of anatta. This was alluded to by Ajahn Chaiya as stated previously that nibanna means not becoming anyone or going anywhere. He also added that the destination of Pure Land Buddhism was not nibanna.

    "Knowing" does not imply or require a self or a form. You can agree or disagree with this. One will know for sure by direct experience only.

    I'm sorry that I probably did not respond very well to your question. I have offered what I can from my current level of understanding.