The Path to Nibbana

by David C Johnson

  The Buddha also refers to Nibbāna as a 'dhātu,' an element, the 'deathless element.' He compares the element of Nibbāna to an ocean. He says that just as the great ocean remains at the same level no matter how much water pours into it from the rivers, without increase or decrease, so the Nibbāna element remains the same, no matter whether many or few people attain Nibbāna.

  He also speaks of Nibbāna as something that can be experienced by the body, an experience that is so vivid, so powerful, that it can be described as ‘touching the deathless element with one's own body.’

  The Buddha also refers to Nibbāna as a 'state' (pada) as 'amatapada' — the deathless state — or accutapada, the imperishable state.

  Another word used by the Buddha to refer to Nibbāna is 'Sacca,' which means 'truth,' an existing reality. This refers to Nibbāna as the truth, a reality that the Noble ones have known through direct experience.

  So, all these terms, considered as a whole, clearly establish that Nibbāna is an actual reality and not the mere destruction of defilements or the cessation of existence. Nibbāna is unconditioned, without any origination and is timeless.”[xv]

  When the Nibbāna element touches craving, it is like the water of the Great Ocean putting the fire out. Pssss…. No more fire. Ni means “no,” and bāna means “fire.” No fire. Nibbāna.

  Venerable Buddhadasa Bhikkhu in an article entitled, Nibbāna for Everyone: A Truth Message from Suan Mokkh (adapted and translated by Santikaro Bhikkhu) also defines Nibbāna as an element:

  “It is the coolness when the defilements are ended…Nibbāna was a whole other matter than death. Instead, it’s a kind of life that knows no death. Nibbāna is the thing which sustains life, thus preventing death. It itself can never die, although the body must die eventually.”

  The cessation and the experience of Nibbāna are two different things. Some say when mind stops that is Nibbāna. No, it is what happens afterword which is seeing the links arise that causes the profound insight into existence to arise. That is Nibbāna.

  We can’t describe the experiences of Nibbāna that happens in each path of sainthood with conditioned words, as it is beyond our conceptual mind to perceive. But it is what comes after the experience that gives you a clue as to what has just happened.

  As described before some explain feeling a moment of relief after it happens. Some experience a deep understanding of dependent origination. Some say they just went away into a “black hole” or disappeared.

  Then, slowly, a mild to strong euphoria arises. I am careful not to use the word “joy” here, it is beyond that. Some describe it like steam that ascends slowly in mind or perhaps a "minty" feeling. This is what we call all-pervading joy; it seeps out from every pore of your body. You may not notice it at first, but soon you feel very uplifted and elevated. It is a feeling of happiness but grounded in very strong equanimity.

  You realize, in a flash, that there is no controller. There is no ego. There is no self — everything is impersonal.

  It is said, “No self, no problem!” What a relief! There is nothing to worry about or control. It is all impersonal — arising and passing away on its own. All of these mental states are arising from causes. They are just conditioned by previous actions. In fact, the meaning of kamma (Pāli) or karma (Sanskrit) is action. There is the action and then the result from that action (vipāka).

  There is no self that you need to psychoanalyze to get to the real problem of this depression or neurosis! Once the concept of self is gone there is nobody left to be depressed, or more clearly, nobody left to take a painful feeling personally. It is only a feeling and it isn’t your feeling.

  You may notice that everything looks a little different now. Your senses appear to be heightened more than normal meditation might make them. Colors are brighter, or you just find yourself looking at the trees with awe and wonder. You notice the mind is sublimely quiet.

  You will be asked if you notice a change in your personality. Do you feel different? Do you have a change in perspective? For some, it is a dramatic change, and for others, it is subtler.

  You will say your mind feels very relieved and happy. You talk about how you understand now how everything arises due to causes and conditions. You are starting to understand deeply what the links are and how they are dependent on each other. Instead of understanding them intellectually you now understand them directly.

  You may use the simile of the cloth as the Buddha did: how everything — with its causes and conditions — weaves together to make a cloth. It is all impersonal. Sutta means “thread” in Pāli; all the suttas weaved together to make the cloth. The cloth represents your wise understanding of the whole process of the Buddha’s teaching.

  You may or may not remember seeing very much of this, but you will know it — this is Wisdom's Eye. The profound knowledge from directly seeing. The deep mind sees what happened, and it has understood what it means. This is Wisdom — seeing the links of dependent origination. This is the Path knowledge. You are now on the path to the full experience of the first stage of awakening.

  Decisions arise in your mind, and you commit an action that has a result, like a painful or pleasant feeling arising in the future. Breaking precepts results in painful consequences. Following precepts result in wholesome, pleasant results. What results do you want? Now you know what is wholesome and what leads to wholesome.

  Most people will experience the first path knowledge in a sitting meditation, but some have reported that it happened after washing dishes or even turning over and going back to sleep. Nibbāna happens when your knowledge is mature, and you are ready.

  At the meditation center in Missouri, we see people get the path attainment every now and then, and one of the principal ways you can tell is that their face changes. It is like all the tension from a lifetime just disappears. It looks as though the face drops — the wrinkled forehead flattens out. You can just see the equanimity bubbling; there is a glowing and a radiance that is there; their speech is more controlled and less emotional.

  Many times, Bhante, after he comes from the interviews, will point out a meditator to me and say, “Look at their face.” When I look, if I look close enough, I see an emotionless but peaceful, angelic expression or just a big smile with a glowing radiance that wasn’t there before.

  After a few days, the most dramatic of these effects disappears as the hindrances make their way back — just not as strong as before.

  Sotāpanna Fruition (Phala)

  The First Path knowledge, which is experienced one time, is followed by the First Fruition Knowledge. The Path knowledge gets you through the door; the Fruition Knowledge closes the door and locks in your understanding. This all happens when you have another cessation moment arise in your meditation, and you experience Nibbāna again.

  After you experience the Sotāpanna Path attainment as outlined above, then if you sit and continue to meditate exactly as you did before, you will experience that process of a blank spot and flashes again, with another feeling of relief. This is the Sotāpanna Fruition. This is the first stage of four stages of sainthood.

  You have entered the temple now, but there are three more levels of attainment following Sotāpanna which we will get into following this chapter.

  However, you might be too restless to sit right after your path attainment. This is due to the strong all-pervading joy you will be experiencing. Over the next few days, as your energy wanes, you will be encouraged to go back to your chair or cushion and gain the fruition of Sotāpanna. You may be told that your mind is very strong now. Do not waste any time. Use this time to make even more progress.

  You are understandably happy about your Path experience. But now that your mind is bright and very clear, it is helpful to continue to the Fruit of the first stage of awakening. Your mind is open and ready, so just continue with your practice.

  Gaining the Fruit is what changes the personality in a major way. Gaining the First Path is a preliminary step to gaining the full
attainment and fruition of Sotāpanna.

  The meditator with only the Path experience can actually slide back due to bad behavior in breaking precepts. You can lose your attainment. This is why it is called the Path knowledge. You have become a cåla Sotāpanna (little stream enterer); you are still on the Path — not done yet! You must keep the precepts fully, meditate, and attain cessation once again.

  Once the Fruition is attained, the path has been fully traveled, and you are now a Noble one who will never break the precepts. You have reached the first level of Sainthood. Bhante Vimalaraṁsi likes to say you have given up “an ocean of suffering!”

  A Sotāpanna purifies and eliminates from his mind the first three fetters of being (there are ten in all):

  Sakkāya-diṭṭhi: personality belief. You now know, without any doubt, that there is no permanent self or soul.

  Vicikicchā: skeptical doubt about the Dhamma. You will have no doubt about the path. You will know how you achieved what you did and how to continue the practice. You have total confidence in the Buddha’s method. You have full confidence in the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha.

  Sīlabbataparāmāsa: clinging to rites and rituals, thinking that they will, by themselves, lead to awakening. You will understand that bowing, chanting, or worshiping the Buddha will not get you to the experience of Nibbāna, no matter how much you do this. You must do the work of meditation and study to attain Nibbāna.

  With the second step of Fruition being attained, you will not be able to break precepts anymore. You might try to do it, just as a test, but you won't be able to go through with it. With only the Path knowledge you could potentially break them, and this is the danger of not attaining the Fruit.

  With only the first path knowledge it is still possible that if you did continue to break precepts and behave badly, you could “lose” your attainment. You would have to go through the process, having the experience of seeing dependent origination, again. Sutta MN 105 Sunakkhatta sutta addresses this possibility with the simile of the wound and healing. If one does not take care of the wound, it is liable to become infected, however, with proper care the wound will heal completely without any possibility of becoming infected. In the same way with the proper taking care of Path Knowledge, your attainment will not be lost.

  With the Fruition, your attainment is locked in. There is no going back to the state of the worldling (puthujjana).

  As a Sotāpanna you are destined to have no more than seven lifetimes before you get off the wheel, become a full Arahant with all ten fetters destroyed, and attain final parinibbāna. Also, when you are reborn, at worst you will not fall below the human realm. You are also assured that your next life will be pleasant, where you can continue to do your work to get off the wheel.

  There are thirty-one planes of existences. You will not fall into the painful, hellish realms now. You won’t come back as an animal or ghost. You may return to the human realm, or to one of the six Deva or Celestial Heaven realms where there is only enjoyment and pleasures. If you attained jhāna (and you certainly did practicing TWIM), you would be destined for at least one of the Brahma realms with incredibly long lifespans, where beings feed on joy to sustain themselves. Or you may go even higher into one of the four arūpa realms where there is only mind, no tasting or touching. They’re exclusively mental realms with no physical body. In these realms, it is said that lifespans are measured with a “1” followed by miles of zeros. So, they are very long.

  If for some reason you have only attained the Path knowledge and haven’t broken precepts, but you did not continue your meditation in this lifetime, the suttas say you will attain the Fruition on or before your death. Most of the time it will come a lot sooner.

  On a retreat, Fruition could come in only a few days, or even hours, if you continue to practice without a break. Recently, a man in Chicago experienced the Path at lunchtime, and the Fruition arose for him at 1:20 a.m that night. He didn’t see the links the first time, but with the Fruition he did report them.

  All the higher paths are attained by just continuing the practice in the same way. There will be deeper and subtler fetters to see and abandon. Your meditation will be easier, but still, the balance of the fetters will continue to arise. Now your confidence will be very strong, and you will be without doubt.

  The suttas also describe another way of becoming a Sotāpanna. Simply hearing a passage of text can bring about the Sotāpanna or Sakadāgāmī Paths. In one translation, sotā means “ear, ” and panna means “wisdom” — wisdom through hearing. This is rare, but it did happen for many of the Buddha's disciples, like Sāriputta and Moggallāna. But for this to happen, the teacher must say exactly the right thing, and the student must be ready. Again, this is a very rare occurrence. And it tends to take a Buddha to accomplish it.

  Now you have had the first two experiences of Nibbāna and have become a Sotāpanna with fruition! This is the goal of the 8 jhānas and the path I have been describing.

  You have become a Noble one, one who has now broken out of the Samsaric wheel of existences — but there is still more to do. There are the Four levels of Noble ones and three more I will describe below that you still must go through to fully eliminate all craving in your mind if you want to accomplish all of this in one lifetime.

  Chapter Sixteen: 2nd Stage — Sakadāgāmī

  —Meditation Instruction:

  Now that you have attained the first path and fruition of Sotāpanna how do you continue? That is easy — just keep doing what you are doing. Each stage of awakening is just one more step on the ladder to eliminating craving. Now the meditator spends two minutes in each direction radiating equanimity and then all around as before. And again, when the feeling fades away you observe the quiet clear mind and 6R any phenomena that arise. That’s it — just keep going. And this is the process all the way to the highest attainment.

  The second stage of awakening is a continued deepening of the meditation practice. You become a Sakadāgāmī when you see the links of dependent origination arising and passing away twice versus only one time for the Sotāpanna. There is a cessation, and you quickly see the twelve links of dependent origination one time, and then they arise and pass away a second time, right after the first. In total 24 links arise and pass away all at once, like train cars one after the other. This seeing of the links is followed by a moment of relief. This is not just based on the sutta texts but has been observed in student’s experience.

  After you attain Sakadāgāmī Path (Magga), the Sakadāgāmī Fruition (Phala) comes when you once again experience cessation and the links of dependent origination arising and passing away twice. Sometimes in the Path experience, the student does not actually see the “bubbles,” which are the links, but they will see them at the fruition.

  As before, it is at Fruition where the personality changes permanently. “Path” Knowledge means really you are just on the path to the Fruit or completion of the Sakadāgāmī Stage.

  At this stage, you weaken but don’t fully eliminate, the fetters of:

  Kāma-rāga: sensuous craving or lust.

  Vyāpāda: ill-will, hatred, anger, aversion, and fear.

  These have been loosened. At times, these unwholesome states will still arise if the circumstance presents itself. You will tend to avoid anger and lust, seeing them as coarse states. If they arise, you will know to 6R them; you will be surprised if they hang around very long. You will be motivated to continue your meditation to fully eliminate these disturbing states of mind. But they will still be present, just not as strong.

  It is at the Fruition there is a strong release and letting go of sensual desires. This doesn’t necessarily mean sexual desire but the coarse desires for sensual pleasures like entertainment, eating out and bodily pleasure. Sexual desire is deeper and is let go later.

  A note here is that if the Fruition of any path is not experienced in this lifetime, it will happen upon your death.

  As a Sakadāgāmī you will have no more than just
one time that you have to return to the Human or Higher Realms before you attain Final Parinibbāna and release from Samsāra. As a Sotāpanna it was seven.

  Three Ways to Nibbāna

  As outlined in this book, the first (and easiest) way to reach Nibbāna is through the jhāna path — what I am describing in this book. There are, however, two other ways to attain Nibbāna.

  The second way is the way the Buddha’s own awakening process unfolded. He went to the fourth jhāna and then: (1) he remembered his past lives; (2) he visited other realms and saw how and why beings were reborn there; and finally, (3) he saw how kamma works, how causes create more causes, in a never-ending wheel that leads to old age and death. Disenchantment and dispassion arose through this knowledge, and Nibbāna was attained. This way is called the “threefold knowledge” or tevijja. That is (1) knowledge of past lives, (2) knowledge of beings in other realms, and (3) knowledge of the destruction of the taints — Nibbāna.

  The third way is through attaining all the psychic powers or iddhis and then attaining Nibbāna. This practice is most suited to people who are sensitive to feeling or emotionally driven. Being sensitive to feeling means you are a feeling type person who is governed by your “heart.” The other type of person is an intellectual person ruled by logic and pragmatic decisions. They are best suited to go through the jhānas. People who are mixed may take the Buddha’s path of the three-fold-knowledge or go through the jhānas. You can be taught to remember your past lives, but we will not go into this practice here. You can ask the teacher if it would be helpful, and they can decide whether they will teach it to you based on your progress and your personality type.