The second Noble Truth informs us that dukkha has an identifiable cause. This is tanha which is literally translated as 'thirst', but in fact possesses the same kind of spectrum of connotations as dukkha. There are gross forms of tanha like obsessive lust for money and sensual pleasures; and there are exceedingly subtle forms, like a desire to do good or to know the truth. And of course there is a whole gamut of middling connotations in between.
Basically tanha can be reduced to a fundamental ache that is implanted in everything that exists: a gnawing dissatisfaction with what is and a concomitant reaching out for something outside ourselves. This is what powers the endless cycle-wheeling motion of the Wheel of Life, driving us on from one moment to the next, one life to the next. Here too resides our native clinging to existence.
Tanha is not an aberration. It is entirely natural. But if we want to get off the Wheel of Life and thereby liberate ourselves form dukkha, we must do something about it. This brings us to the third Noble Truth. This tells us that there is a method: a way or path that can be travelled to ultimate freedom.
Freedom form tanh?is konwn in Pali as Nibbana, the Sanakrit equivalent of which, Nibbana, has now entered English parlance. There are two kinds of Nibbana:
1.That which has a residual basis.
2.That Which has no residual basis.
The first arose in Shakyamuni Buddha as he sat beneath the Bodhi Tree at Bodh Gaya on the fateful night of the full moon of May; the second arose when he finally passed away at Kusinara. In the first case a living being continued to pursue an earthly life; in the second, there was complete extinction(Parinirvana): nothing tangible remained behind.
What is Nirvana? Invariably it is stressed that it cannot be grasped via sense experience or by the mind operating in term of its usual conceptual categories. And it certainly cannot be described in words. To do so would be like trying to describe the colour red to a blind person, As it lies wholly outside our normal field of experience, we can and must come to it through direct insight-and his indeed is basically what the Buddha's way is all about. However, bearing in mind that any description must be more or less inaccurate, a few tentative pointers may be given to guide us in the right general direction. The word 'Nirvana' itself possesses connotations of 'blowing out' or 'extinguishing', as a flame may be blown out or extinguished once the fuel that feeds it has been exhausted. It is cool and peaceful. Dukkha doesn't touch it, nor the passions of greed, hatred and ignorance. In the Buddha's own words:
Monks, there is an unborn, unoriginated, unmade and unconditioned. Were there would be no escape from the born, originated, made and conditioned. Since there is the unborn, unoriginated, unmade and unconditioned, there is escape form the born, originated, made and conditioned.
Finally, even though Nirvana is usually described in negative terms- it is obviously easier to say that it is not than what it is -it is nevertheless lavishly praised in the Buddhist scriptures as amounting to supreme bliss, na less.
at once, of course, the mind starts to create speculative pictures-and stumbles into mistaken views. One classic howler to the see Nirvana as some kind of annihilationism (complete non-existence), which is twinned with the equally mistaken view of eternalism (that something may exist forever). Nirvana lies beyond both existence and non-existence. Another howler is to imagine Nirvana as a heaven where all good Buddhists go. It is definitely not a place, nor is it 'somewhere else'. Paradoxically, though unconditioned itself it only arises amid worldly conditions, and in the case of human beings, within the human body:
In this fathom-long body, with all its perceptions and thoughts, do I proclaim the world, the origin of the world , the cessation of the world and the path leading to the cessation of the world.
The forth Noble Truth defines this path to liberation by telling us what practical steps we have to take in order to rot out tanha and thereby create the fertile ground in which Nirvana may arise. There steps are laid out in the teaching of the Noble Eightfold Path.
