Path: Supernews!supernews.com!kudonet.com!not-for-mail From: I@no.self (!) Newsgroups: talk.religion.buddhism,alt.religion.buddhism,alt.magick.tyagi Subject: nirvana's permanence (was Re: impermanence) Date: 13 May 1997 10:46:51 -0700 Organization: KudoNet On-Line Services Lines: 68 Sender: tyagi@bjt.net Message-ID: <5la9eb$q8g@kudo20.kudonet.com> References: <336cde6a.38662268@news.telepac.pt> <01bc5d7d$1486b940$980746cf@panguyen.micron.net> <3376730C.4CAA@hughes.net> Reply-To: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (!) NNTP-Posting-Host: kudo20.kudonet.com X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 (NOV) Xref: Supernews talk.religion.buddhism:34815 alt.religion.buddhism:736 alt.magick.tyagi:12022 cjc@mail.telepac.pt (Carlos Joao): #>#> One of the most basic principles of buddhism - buddha dharma - is the #>#> idea of impermanence (anitya, anicca) . But can we consider nirvana as #>#> a principle of permanence? !: #># a principle of a principle? no, nirvana is a condition, not a principle. #># it is the extinguishment of craving (tanha) ...that which IS impermanent John : # I've asked myself: is the condition of nirvana once reached, permanent? once one learns that Santa Claus is a fabrication, there is no going back #Can we FALL out of nirvana in the fullness of time[?] #The myth says that the first parents were in a condition of no #DIS EASE a PARADISE But that too changed. the First Parents (of the Western religious mythos) are, among other things, indicative of PRIMORDIAL INNOCENCE. they were not living in nirvana, and so to go back to that oceanic state of dependency and ignorance would be an impossibility and an error nirvana is less like an innocence and more like a disillusion FROM such innocence. suddenly the Middle Path is very clear and we may always walk it, yet to choose not to walk it is a CHOICE from here on, not a thing which one does because one is lost on the Wheel #If everything is transitory, will not our stays in the state of nirvana #heaven or whatever change? there was a time when I thought I had to lie in order to get what I wanted. so I crafted all manner of deceptions and sometimes this worked to my advantage and sometimes it turned out in ways which I did not enjoy at some point I realized that the energetic expenditure and hand-wringing which accompanied this web of deception was more effort and travail on me than the objects and/or experiences which lying secured this realization cannot go away. it is like my first sexual experience, I cannot 'unlearn' that, reverse time and unexperience it in some sort of grand forgetting. nirvana is like this in that it can be left or intentionally avoided, yet it is such a concrete and all-present experience that it cannot be 'forgotten' like one forgets to water the lawn or feed the spiders. all experience is imbued in the suffering which samsara yields. once one has slid down into the Valley of Exquisite Beauty, why make the effort to climb back out? some Greater Vehicle Riders will add wisdom here, saying: 'so that we can assist others to attain to that condition also!' and yet too often such a 'waiting' is understood as a forestalling of 'crossing to some mystical Other Shore' rather than as an intentional demonstration of the *movement* from samsara to nirvana and back, over and over again, until there is indeed no dividing line left in us and many others have begun to see the process for themselves thus while it may be impossible to 'forget' and slip back into samsaric experience, it *is* possible to re-enter the Wheel for the purposes of assisting all sentient beings to achieve liberation along with us. there may also be a state of 'parinirvana' (some associate this with physical dissolution but I am unsure) wherein no longer has the samsaric world any reality to us. it is a refinement which I tend to associate with 'buddha-nature', and can include all manner of demeanor (cf. stories of Padmasambhava or Yeshes Tsogyel and their interactions in the world) -- see http://www.hollyfeld.org/~tyagi/nagasiva.html and call: 408/2-666-SLUG!!! ---- (emailed replies may be posted) ---- CC public replies to author ---- * * * Asphalta Cementia Metallica Polymera Coyote La Cucaracha Humana * * *