The Buddhist name for the state where all craving, ignorance

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The Buddhist name for the state where all craving, ignorance and suffering has been eliminated is Nirvana. To escape the 6 realms is to achieve nirvana and is the ultimate goal in Buddhism. Nirvana is difficult if not impossible to describe. It is much easier to say what it is not rather than what it is which is why even the Buddha found it hard to express. It is not a place but a state of mind, a state of enlightenment and has no beginning and no end. There are 2 stages to nirvana, the stage where the mind and heart has achieved nirvana but the body still exists, and the nirvana after death. The word literally means “blown out” which symbolises the extinguishing of all hatred, greed and ignorance A fable told by buddhists which used a turtle trying to explain to a fish what dry land is like as an example which shows how nirvana must be experienced to fully understand it Siddharta became buddha after 49 days of concentrated meditation and because he had been reborn several times gaining good karma it gave hi the opertunity to overcome the cravings of the world and become enlightened.

The theravada view of nirvana seen in the buddha’s life developes a further strand with his death. The buddha’s body dies but the buddha described as entering parinibanna which means complete nirvana or enlightenment without left over karma. Parinirvana refers to the buddhas death, at physical death he obtains parinabanna, He will never be reborn ther is no way of going back from the nirvana In the questions of king milanda, Nagasena explains to the king that nirvana can only be fully understood by experiencing the state urself. However descriptions of arhats jelps ordinary followers to get an idea of what is ment eg hearing the sounds ppl make when they have limbs amputated, help other ppl to appreciate how painful it is . He states there r 2 levels of truth, conventional truth and untimate truth. Conventional truth is wot we accept most of the time eg I am writing on this paper, since ne1 who was watching me would agree but whatever we accept as true staements is not an untimate truth because nothing is permanent . Nagesena compares nirvana to the wind which cannot be see or touched but we still know it exists In mahayana Buddhism the view of nirvana is less personal and it is connected to the concepts of the bodhisattva so most mahayana Buddhist’s believe that nirvana is something every1 should achieve. They teach that since everything has a cause and is impermanent then nirvana must also have a cause. If it has a cause and is impermanent it is no different to samsara so in theory nirvana is samsara. Everything is a product of the mind and the difference between nirvana and samsara is the thought that one is eternal abd perfect while the other is impermanent and suffering As theravada Buddhist’s believe that nirvana is achieved by following the dhamma and through individual effort. For lay people nirvana is a distant goal that is only achievable through gain of good karma over many lifetimes. Their practice is therefor to gain good karma in everything they do, as it will being them closer to nirvana Mahayana belief in nirvana for every1 effects their practise of their religion. They focus their meditation towards a bodhisattva or a buddha because they believe these are the ppl who help others towards nirvana Nirvana is the end result of following the 8 fold path. It is what happens when all the flames of desire have gone and a person is utterly at peace. It is usally and should be seen as a very positive thing. It is the release from a world of sorrow and is the end of all pain. On the basis of this Nirvana is an appealing and inspirational goal for life