Nirvana

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by birch, Jan 26, 2018.

  1. birch Valued Senior Member

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    nir·va·na:

    (in Buddhism) a transcendent state in which there is neither suffering, desire, nor sense of self, and the subject is released from the effects of karma and the cycle of death and rebirth. It represents the final goal of Buddhism.

    The term "nirvana" is most commonly associated with Buddhism, and represents its ultimate state of soteriological release and liberation from rebirths in saṃsāra.

    Nirvana is the highest spiritual state

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    I want a love that is grander and more all-encompassing than any human can provide. I want to reach nirvana.

    Freedom is the greatest love/respect anyone can bestow you and to follow your own best path.

    You have to find your own personal enlightenment/truth and for yourself.

    Some people's paths are through religion, materialism, philosophy or science. We are all searching, whether we realize it or not.
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2018
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  3. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Wouldn't being loving be a good way to start down that road?
     
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  5. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Or even being lovable

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  7. birch Valued Senior Member

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    animals can be loving, have they reached nirvana? it's more complicated.

    it's seems to be a combination of factors but one major aspect would be increasing awareness and self-awareness.
     
  8. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Anthropomorphising animals is complicated yes

    Since we don't know any animals which have any concept of nirvana (I don't think any exist) it would be impossible for them to chart a pathway to nirvana

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  9. birch Valued Senior Member

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    it's interesting what this concept denotes besides the spiritual aspect but it is hinting that it does not want the universe to recreate through evolution another likeness of you. to cease and desist the cycle of death and rebirth. either infinite nothingness or transcendence.
     
  10. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Anthropomorphising concepts???? New one on me

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  11. birch Valued Senior Member

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    i'm getting the concept of a purification and purifying one's vibrations/energy through ethical lifestyle. this is why celibacy, vegan diet, meditation, ethical choices etc seem to be on the way. it's the foregoing of baser animal instincts. the path of the saints.
     
  12. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    The rebirth thing is a metaphor. Breaking out of the standard mold of being makes one unique and impossible to copy, because it's not a culture, it's essentially empty.
    I will say that the desire for nirvana paradoxically creates an obstacle to nirvana, because it reinforces the thought that it's something, and something a person can learn or achieve. But it's no more than finding out where your hat is, and that you've been wearing it the whole time. The idea of self is useful, which is why we have it, but it's also a thought, and thought is not the tool to transcend thought.
     
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  13. birch Valued Senior Member

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    it seems the concept of nirvana is to lighten your attachment to the physical world which is a denser existence/plane and to develop/raise your light to a point that you can eventually 'escape' (transcend) the cycle of death and rebirth.
     
  14. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    We are always already detached because we live in a virtual world of symbology. Thoughts and perceptions are symbols. Identification with thought and physical action is also a thought. But underlying this day to day thinking mechanism is another brain that resists such identification. When we act directly from this brain, we don't have to consciously think about it. And that can be a relief. It's also faster and more clever and spontaneous. I've heard it referred to as the natural state, and probably all early people lived like this all the time.
     
  15. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    Sounds potentially equivalent to "not even nothing". IOW, pretty much the same would be achieved in a specific atheistic worldview that discards any form of personal continuity after death; accepts that there is not even a subjective-less manner of appearance, feeling, and cognition of anything after death; and endorses a presentism view of time (i.e, one does not after death still exist in a likewise real past and conscious-wise experience its distinct moments successively -- or all the temporal parts which constituted one's life did not co-exist with each other as in eternalism).

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  16. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    I believe that a Buddha would say yes to that question.
     
  17. birch Valued Senior Member

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    no, because they are here.
     
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    That would be a human perceiver's illusion. Are "they" (as perceived) subject to such illusions?

    As far as the value of nirvana or the desire to reach it, we have this cautionary scene: http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC4330763
    The fish float around in a calm and peacefully meditative state, while being eaten alive by a snail.
     

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