B NIRVANA

It is said that when Nirvana has been realized, all desire 'blows out'. Should we see that as not wanting anything anymore? Is then everything you do a choice? For example, would an enlightened one not have survival reflexes because his will has ceased completely? In other words, was living a choice for Buddha?


The idea in the Mahayana tradition is that the Nirmanakaya is purely a manifestation of compassion. Even the Buddha's breath is occurring only in order to sustain his body so that he can teach the Dharma and tame sentient beings.

Even for a Buddha the body still produces pleasure and pain and needs to eat to maintain itself. The Buddha could acknowledge pleasure and pain as they arise in the body, but he doesn’t suffer from it, because there’s no attachment anymore. So the Buddha has awareness of pain from an empty stomach and can choose to act however he wants towards it, but if he chooses not to eat the body will deteriorate.

No. Someone who has attained Nirvana does not turn into a tree stump. What it means is that the choices are no longer fettered by mental defilements.

In contrast, we think we have freedom because we could do what we want - but that's a delusion, because in truth we are fettered. Our actions are fettered to our mental defilements. When we are heedless, our actions are largely influenced by greed, hatred and delusion - like a puppet played by a puppeteer. It's like playing a computer game while your younger sibling keeps wrestling the gamepad off your hands.

It is when the Buddha freed himself from the puppeteer, that he began to live.

He still had work to complete. Yes he became enlightened, but now he had to teach everyone else how to cease suffering.

One interpretation here, others may vary.

Buddhism(s) tend to recognize 2-3 kinds of psychological desires, one is tanha (ie craving) another is upādāna (clinging, grasping, fueling), and another is chanda (wish, intention, resolution, disposition of interests).

Tanha and upadana are experienced as a part of dukkha. So they are (experienced as) stressful, discontentment, dissatisfaction, pained etc. The roots of tanha are passions and greed, aversions, and delusions (like identity views). Sometimes anger and fear (of death) are added to this list. So by nirvana-ing one blows out most 'desires' and you get an existence that is freed from tanha, upadana, the roots of tanha etc.

But chanda remains, at least a purified (and perhaps spontaneous) form of it. Because chanda by itself can be positive or negative, and some chandas do not cause dukkha. It is said that the chanda of the Buddha was one of (unconditional or non-attached) compassion or sympathy. So not only did the wish for the cessation of dukkha apply proximally, but also to other beings, but not to the point of fixation (clinging).

So Gotama nirvana-ed (it can be used as a verb), awakened to (something, a truth or ultimate nature of things, a state of mind, knowledge, a transformed sensory discernment or consciousness etc... interpretations vary, and I am not awakened so I can't say which are correct), and remained in the bliss or tranquility of awakening. But then eventually exited the bliss of awakening, though could re-enter it when wished for. But throughout it all, a purified chanda and transformed citta was present, perhaps even as a consequence of nirvana-ing and awakening

.out of compassion for beings, surveyed the world with the eye of an Awakened One. As he did so, he saw beings with little dust in their eyes and those with much, those with keen faculties and those with dull, those with good attributes and those with bad, those easy to teach and those hard, some of them seeing disgrace & danger in the other world." SN6:1

In the scriptures, once the Buddha, and those he instructed, reach enlightenment, they do something sometimes called 'The Lion's roar' which is stated as this phrase:

“Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for the sake of this world.”

It is the recognition that one had ended the conditions of new karma... karma that would lead to renewed craving and clinging. Old karma remains (e.g the body and its needs) and the enlightened being endures in this world for one final lifetime... teaching out of compassion for other beings.

Should we see that as not wanting anything anymore? Is then everything you do a choice?

Yes and yes. And he continues to live because there would be no reason to choose to starve your body, or let it be eaten by a tiger, etc, etc.

he unknotted all the knots on himself as that was his desire or "the way" of him the string