Ask A Buddhist II

[Bakmoon]

Indeed, that would be one huge similarity. The importance of poverty in both Catholicism and Buddhism.

I myself am entering the Dominican Order and will be learning to live poverty in a community of religious brothers.

Sādhu! Sādhu! Sādhu!

Which is Pali for:

It is good, it is good, it is good!

Good for you.

 

[AdamP88]

Sādhu! Sādhu! Sādhu!

Which is Pali for:

It is good, it is good, it is good!

Good for you.

Go Raibh Maith Agat!!

Which is Irish-Gaelic for:

Thank You!

 

[notself]

This beautifully written passage provides a vital clue to St Francis’ pursuit of the Lady Poverty, as he lovingly called her.

St. Francis turned the suffering of poverty into spiritual riches through the effort of his mind and faith.

The biography I read was written in the 1950’s and the author admitted that he made no effort to separate facts from myth. It was very Indian for him to refrain from doing so, because in India, they don’t mind mixing the two. It is only in Western lineal thinking we try to separate the two all of the time.

I find it particularly sad when Western authors refer to ancient beliefs as myths as though there were no truth in myth.

 

[AdamP88]

St. Francis turned the suffering of poverty into spiritual riches through the effort of his mind and faith.

The biography I read was written in the 1950’s and the author admitted that he made no effort to separate facts from myth. It was very Indian for him to refrain from doing so, because in India, they don’t mind mixing the two. It is only in Western lineal thinking we try to separate the two all of the time.

I find it particularly sad when Western authors refer to ancient beliefs as myths as though there were no truth in myth.

I agree with you. It is good to have a rich mythical culture. Ireland has this, though we have lost it somewhat in modern times. But I think many in the west seek to separate fact from myth in an attempt to be more “progressive” or rational. In reality it is sometimes a good thing to have myths attached to what we believe in.

 

[Bakmoon]

I agree with you. It is good to have a rich mythical culture. Ireland has this, though we have lost it somewhat in modern times. But I think many in the west seek to separate fact from myth in an attempt to be more “progressive” or rational. In reality it is sometimes a good thing to have myths attached to what we believe in.

Indeed. Far too often people misunderstand the term myth and think it to mean stupid stories from the past that stupid people used to believe, but that of course is not what myth is. Myth is the communication of the worldview and beliefs of a people through the medium of folk stories, and it is a rich and subtle form of literature which I believe the modern world would do well to rediscover.

 

[AdamP88]

Indeed. Far too often people misunderstand the term myth and think it to mean stupid stories from the past that stupid people used to believe, but that of course is not what myth is. Myth is the communication of the worldview and beliefs of a people through the medium of folk stories, and it is a rich and subtle form of literature which I believe the modern world would do well to rediscover.

Agree 100%

 

[AdamP88]

We should actually set up a myths thread…

To link to Myths/stories etc from different cultures.

That could be interesting.

 

[Bakmoon]

Do these include the prajnaparamita texts or any of those that took place at Vulture Peak Mountain? Or any that take a sort of more general view on emptiness? Could you link to some examples of this overlap? I’m basically wondering to what extent the sutrayana texts on emptiness are part of that cannon.

I believe notself may have misspoke. She said that the earliest Mahayana texts were the same as the Theravada sects, but that is a little ambigous on what it means. Let me answer you fresh and see if that helps.

Before the rise of Mahayana Buddhism, there were 18 to 20 diferent schools or lineages of Buddhism around, depending on how you count them. Each had a very slightly diferent Canon of texts, and had divided over differences in monastic rules and in differences in their understanding of Abhidhamma.

Mahayana was never a school, but rather a cross school movement that cut across such boundaries. Mahayana and non-mahayana monks would often live in the same monastaries and meditate the same way. The only difference were their acceptance of new ideas regarding the nature of the Bodhisattva and such. It was only later when the Mahayana and non-mahayana groups seperated out from each other.

When Mahayana Buddhism spread to central asia, the monks who brought it were Mahayana monks of the Dharmaguptaka lineage of Buddhism, and they brought their pre-Mahayana Canons with them along side the newer Mahayana Sutras. Both were eventually translated into Chinese.

The texts of the Dharmaguptaka sect are called the Agamas, and they are essentially the same as the Nikayas of the Pali Canon. The first four Nikayas of the Pali Canon and the first four Agamas of the Dharmaguptaka Canon are largely the same in content. The overlap is the Digha Nikaya with the Dirgha Agama, the Majjhima Nikaya with the Madhyama Agama, the Samutta Nikaya with the Samyukta Agama, and the Anguttara Nikaya with the Ekottara Agama.

Most of the works found in these collections are also found in their corresponding collection in the other sect, with minor differences in word choice and in ordering. For example, the Satipatthana Sutta in the Majjhima Nikaya places the section on mindfulness of breathing in the section about the contemplation of the body, whereas its counterpart in the Madhyama Agama places the same section in the introduction to the work.

The explicitly Mahayana texts like the Prajnaparamita works are not found in either of these collections, and were written later. Some of the concepts are similar to those in the Pali Canon and the Agamas, however. The use of the term emptiness usually is used in a very diferent sense than it is in the Prajnaparamita, however. In some places the Buddha says to develop emptiness, which in context means to develop a mind that is empty of the five hindrances.

There is one sense in which it is used similarly however. In the Suñña Sutta
(accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn35/sn35.085.than.html)
the Buddha uses the term to mean lacking the property of self, and in the Phena Sutta
(accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.095.than.html)
The Buddha compares the world to the effervescence of foam. The poetic passage at the end is even similar in imagery to the ending to the Diamond Sutra. Let me show them side by side for an example:

Form is like a glob of foam;
feeling, a bubble;
perception, a mirage;
fabrications, a banana tree;
consciousness, a magic trick —
this has been taught by the Kinsman of the Sun.

However you observe them,
appropriately examine them,
they’re empty, void to whoever sees them appropriately.

Beginning with the body as taught by the One with profound discernment:
when abandoned by three things — life, warmth, & consciousness — form is rejected, cast aside.
When bereft of these it lies thrown away, senseless, a meal for others.
That’s the way it goes: it’s a magic trick, an idiot’s babbling. It’s said to be a murderer.[1] No substance here is found. Thus a monk, persistence aroused, should view the aggregates by day & by night, mindful, alert; should discard all fetters; should make himself his own refuge; should live as if his head were on fire — in hopes of the state with no falling away.

The Phena Sutta
accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.095.than.html

Compare with the Diamond Sutra’s poetic ending:

“So I say to you -
This is how to contemplate our conditioned existence in this fleeting world:”

“Like a tiny drop of dew, or a bubble floating in a stream;
Like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
Or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream.”

“So is all conditioned existence to be seen.”

The Diamond Sutra
diamond-sutra.com/diamond_sutra_text/page32.html

Similar language and style. The Diamond Sutra isn’t found in the Agamas or the Pali Canon, but it is in large part based off of the same ideas. I can give more parallels if you like.

 

[notself]

Bakmoon,

Thank you. I did not make myself clear.

 

[patrick457]

Indeed. Far too often people misunderstand the term myth and think it to mean stupid stories from the past that stupid people used to believe, but that of course is not what myth is. Myth is the communication of the worldview and beliefs of a people through the medium of folk stories, and it is a rich and subtle form of literature which I believe the modern world would do well to rediscover.

Exactly! I’m really glad someone gets it.

 

[Lodro]

The Buddha compares the world to the effervescence of foam. The poetic passage at the end is even similar in imagery to the ending to the Diamond Sutra. Let me show them side by side for an example:

Absolutely beautiful. This is such a rich and rewarding experience for me.

Similar language and style. The Diamond Sutra isn’t found in the Agamas or the Pali Canon, but it is in large part based off of the same ideas. I can give more parallels if you like.

Please. In particular, as I’m going to make a poor attempt to describe the profound realization of the emptiness of all mental constructs in the second thread, I’d be thrilled to see any precedents that follow the pattern of the glorious Heart Sutra.

Now these Mahayana Sutras could not be part of any literalist historical record as such, given that they involve the presence of hosts of Bodhisattvas and so on, but to me they are the kind of “myths” that are more real than the delusions we take as our reality every day.

 

[rossum]

Were the Mahayana writings written much later than the Pali Canon?

Difficult to say. Both were transmitted orally until about 100BCE when they were first written down. It is true that the Mahayana sutras have been reworked into a form more suitable for a book than for oral transmission, while the Pali suttas preserve the oral form more closely. Hence their frequent use of repetition and standard formulae.

It is also the case that the early Mahayana texts were often in verse, for easier oral transmission, so in a modern translation you will often find the same passage repeated twice, once in verse and once in text. This can often be seen in the Lotus Sutra for example. Normally the verse is the older of the two.

The Mahayana were also more willing to add to their sutras, so they are a lot larger and contain later additions onto an older core. Just as with the Bible, there can be hundreds of years difference between parts of the same text.

rossum

 

[rossum]

Do these include the prajnaparamita texts or any of those that took place at Vulture Peak Mountain? Or any that take a sort of more general view on emptiness? Could you link to some examples of this overlap? I’m basically wondering to what extent the sutrayana texts on emptiness are part of that cannon.

Edward Conze did an extensive analysis of the prajnaparamita sutras. The original text is now the first two chapters of the verse summary of the version in 8,000 lines: the ratnaguna-samkhaya-gatha. The version in 8,000 lines is the original, though the later chapters have been added to the initial core. That version was then expanded into the large version in 18,000, 25,000 or 100,000 lines. These are the same text, which only differ in the extent to which the various lists are written out. The shorter versions just shorten the lists.

After the long version came the short summaries, notably the Heart sutra and the Diamond sutra.

The idea of emptiness is present in the Pali canon, but does not have the emphasis it is given in the Mahayana, especially not the heavy emphasis in the Perfetion of Wisdom.

rossum

 

[notself]

rossum,

Is emptiness as it is described in Mahayana the same as *not self *, anatta, in Theravada or does emptiness mean no reality, nothing is real?

 

[rossum]

rossum,

Is emptiness as it is described in Mahayana the same as *not self *, anatta, in Theravada or does emptiness mean no reality, nothing is real?

Reality is real, but it is deceptively real.

A mirage is not water, though it does look like water. A mirage is not nothing, it is something but just not what it looks like. A mirage looks like water, and nothing would not look like water.

I impute many things to reality that are not actually present in reality. That is our mistake, and nothing to do with what is actually present in reality.

The emptiness of emptiness is the fact that not even emptiness exists ultimately, that it is also dependent, conventional, nominal, and in the end it is just the everydayness of the everyday. Penetrating to the depths of being, we find ourselves back on the surface of things and so discover that there is nothing, after all, beneath those deceptive surfaces. Moreover, what is deceptive about them is simply the fact that we assume ontological depth lurking just beneath.

– Jay Garfield, “Empty words, Buddhist philosophy and cross-cultural interpretation.” OUP 2002.

Reality is emptiness because it is empty of all the extraneous stuff our minds overlay onto the basic sense-impressions which are all we can really know of reality.

rossum

 

[notself]

Reality is real, but it is deceptively real.

A mirage is not water, though it does look like water. A mirage is not nothing, it is something but just not what it looks like. A mirage looks like water, and nothing would not look like water.

I impute many things to reality that are not actually present in reality. That is our mistake, and nothing to do with what is actually present in reality.

The emptiness of emptiness is the fact that not even emptiness exists ultimately, that it is also dependent, conventional, nominal, and in the end it is just the everydayness of the everyday. Penetrating to the depths of being, we find ourselves back on the surface of things and so discover that there is nothing, after all, beneath those deceptive surfaces. Moreover, what is deceptive about them is simply the fact that we assume ontological depth lurking just beneath.

– Jay Garfield, “Empty words, Buddhist philosophy and cross-cultural interpretation.” OUP 2002.

Reality is emptiness because it is empty of all the extraneous stuff our minds overlay onto the basic sense-impressions which are all we can really know of reality.

rossum

If I understand you correctly, emptiness means that all things are conditioned. A mirage is real because it is light light traveling through air of different temperatures causing it to bend. A mirage is conditioned by heat and light. Our perception of the mirage is conditioned by our brains interpreting the effect. Our perception leads to the mental formation that it sees water. In this case it is a false impression, but the concept of conditioned existence works in all cases of existence.

So emptiness is a combination of the concepts of anatta and dependent origination. Yes?

 

[rossum]

If I understand you correctly, emptiness means that all things are conditioned. A mirage is real because it is light light traveling through air of different temperatures causing it to bend. A mirage is conditioned by heat and light. Our perception of the mirage is conditioned by our brains interpreting the effect. Our perception leads to the mental formation that it sees water. In this case it is a false impression, but the concept of conditioned existence works in all cases of existence.

So emptiness is a combination of the concepts of anatta and dependent origination. Yes?

Yes. I would also include anicca in there as well, since emptiness incorporates impermanence. Things which are non-empty are permanent, so all the arguments against permanence work in favour of emptiness. That is one difference from the Theravada, nirvana is shunya along with everything else.

 

[patrick457]

Just to quote it again:

The Heart of the Perfection-of-Wisdom
(Prajñāpāramita-hṛdayam)

Aryavalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, when he was practicing the profound perfection-of-wisdom (prajñāpāramitā), perceives that the five aggregates (skandha) are all void, thus overcoming every suffering and calamity.

“Here, Śāriputra, form (rūpa) is no different from voidness (śūnyatā); voidness is no different from form. Form is voidness; voidness is form. Form, feeling (vedanā), volitions (saṃskāra), perceptions (saṃjñā), [and] consciousness (vijñāna) are thus also.
“Here, Śāriputra, all phenomena (dharma) are empty of characteristics: non-producing, non-destroying; non-defiled, non-pure; non-adding, non-subtracting.
“Therefore, Śāriputra, in voidness there is no form, [and] no feeling, volitions, perceptions, [and] consciousness; no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, [or] mind; no form, sound, odor, taste, touch, [or] phenomena; no eye-realm (cakṣūr-dhātu), up to and including no mind-realm (manovijñāna-dhātu); no ignorance (avidyā), and also no termination of ignorance; up to and including no age-death (jarāmaraṇa) and also no termination of age-death; no suffering (duḥkha), origin (samudaya), cessation (nirodha), [or] path (magga); no knowledge (jnana), [and] also no merit.
“Therefore, Śāriputra, as there is no merit, the mind of bodhisattvas, due to the perfection-of-wisdom, has no / dispels] obstruction (cittāvaraṇa); as there is no obstruction, there is no fear, and being far from delusions and dreams, in the end they attain nirvāṇa. All the buddhas of the three times (tryadhva-vyavasthitāḥ sarva-buddhāḥ), due to the perfection-of-wisdom, attain the supreme perfect enlightenment (anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi).
“Therefore, know that the perfection-of-wisdom is a great mantra (mahā-mantro), a mantra of great wisdom (mahā-vidyā mantro), a surpreme mantra ('nuttara-mantro), an unequalled mantra (samasama-mantraḥ), an allayer of all suffering (sarva duḥkha praśamanaḥ), and is true – not false.
“The perfection-of-wisdom mantra is spoken thus:

“Gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā”

 

[Vouthon]

"…For thousands of years you have lived in this land and fashioned a culture that endures to this day. And during all this time, the Spirit of God has been with you. Your “Dreaming”, which influences your lives so strongly that, no matter what happens, you remain for ever people of your culture, is your only way of touching the mystery of God’s Spirit in you and in creation. You must keep your striving for God and hold on to it in your lives…Your culture, which shows the lasting genius and dignity of your race, must not be allowed to disappear… Your songs, your stories, your paintings, your dances, your languages, must never be lost…Some of the stories from your Dreamtime legends speak powerfully of the great mysteries of human life, its frailty, its need for help, its closeness to spiritual powers and the value of the human person…”

- Pope John Paul II address to Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander peoples at Alice Springs, 1986

Here’s a link to the full address: vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/1986/november/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19861129_aborigeni-alice-springs-australia_en.html

Blessed Pope John Paul II had a great facility for understanding the true meaning of myth. The late Pope John Paul II visited the Aboriginal people at Alice Springs in central Australia in 1986.

He preached that the Dreamtime (the Aboriginal myth) touches all human experience of the sacred, and gives a deep appreciation of what Aboriginal culture has to offer to all humanity.

It gives fruitful and magnificent insights by seeing the sacred as touching all physical creation and human experience. It really brings to life Emmanuel, the Hebrew concept of “God with us.”

I believe that JRR Tolkien - the author of the “Lord of the Rings” - was trying to create a modern “Mythos” for the secularized, post-Enlightenment Western world, a legendarium based upon ancient Norse, Anglo-Saxon etc. myths and legends, complete with its own history, languages (him being a consummate philologist) and even a “Bible” (a sacred text, the Silmarillion).

It was a noble feat. Tolkien was a devout Catholic and one who also understood the sacredness of myth and lore, as an expression of a culture’s deepest beliefs and insights into reality. Read:

Myths, Lewis told Tolkien, were “lies and therefore worthless, even though breathed through silver.”

“No,” Tolkien replied. “They are not lies.” Far from being lies they were the best way — sometimes the only way — of conveying truths that would otherwise remain inexpressible. We have come from God, Tolkien argued, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily toward the true harbor, whereas materialistic “progress” leads only to the abyss and the power of evil.

“In expounding this belief in the inherent truth of mythology,” wrote Tolkien’s biographer, Humphrey Carpenter, “Tolkien had laid bare the center of his philosophy as a writer, the creed that is at the heart of The Silmarillion.” It is also the creed at the heart of all his other work. His short novel, Tree and Leaf, is essentially an allegory on the concept of true myth, and his poem, “Mythopoeia,” is an exposition in verse of the same concept.

Building on this philosophy of myth, Tolkien explained to Lewis that the story of Christ was the true myth at the very heart of history and at the very root of reality. Whereas the pagan myths were manifestations of God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using the images of their “mythopoeia” to reveal fragments of His eternal truth, the true myth of Christ was a manifestation of God expressing Himself through Himself, with Himself, and in Himself. God, in the Incarnation, had revealed Himself as the ultimate poet who was creating reality, the true poem or true myth, in His own image. Thus, in a divinely inspired paradox, myth was revealed as the ultimate realism.

Such a revelation changed Lewis’ whole conception of Christianity, precipitating his conversion

Lewis was one of the select group of friends, known collectively as the Inklings, who read the manuscript of Tolkien’s timeless classic, The Lord of the Rings, as it was being written. This work, which has been voted the greatest book of the 20th century in a succession of polls, was described by its author as “a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.”

Space does not permit a full exposition of the depths of Christian orthodoxy in The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, or Tolkien’s other work. Those wishing to discover more are referred to my books, Tolkien: Man and Myth and Tolkien: A Celebration, in which the relationship between Tolkien’s faith and the myth he created are examined at greater length.

In brief, however, the power of Tolkien lies in the way that he succeeds, through myth, in making the unseen hand of providence felt by the reader. In his mythical creations, or sub-creations as he would call them, he shows how the unseen hand of God is felt far more forcefully in myth than it is ever felt in fiction. Paradoxically, fiction works with facts, albeit invented facts, whereas myth works with truth, albeit truth dressed in fancy disguises. Furthermore, since facts are physical and truth is metaphysical, myth, being metaphysical, is spiritual.

The writer and poet Charles A. Coulombe concluded his essay, “The Lord of the Rings: A Catholic View,” with the following incisive assessment of Tolkien’s importance. It was a fitting conclusion to his essay on the subject. It is also a fitting conclusion to mine:

“It has been said that the dominant note of the traditional Catholic liturgy was intense longing. This is also true of her art, her literature, her whole life. It is a longing for things that cannot be in this world: unearthly truth, unearthly purity, unearthly justice, unearthly beauty. By all these earmarks, Lord of the Rings is indeed a Catholic work, as its author believed: But it is more. It is this age’s great Catholic epic, fit to stand beside the Grail legends, Le Morte d’Arthur and The Canterbury Tales. It is at once a great comfort to the individual Catholic, and a tribute to the enduring power and greatness of the Catholic tradition, that JRRT created this work. In an age which has seen an almost total rejection of the faith on the part of the Civilization she created . . . Lord of the Rings assures us, both by its existence and its message, that the darkness cannot triumph forever.”

The full article:
catholiceducation.org/articles/arts/al0107.html

I have much more to say about myth and Tolkien, a great Catholic author but it would probably be “off-topic” so I will leave it there

 

[notself]

Yes. I would also include anicca in there as well, since emptiness incorporates impermanence. Things which are non-empty are permanent, so all the arguments against permanence work in favour of emptiness. That is one difference from the Theravada, nirvana is shunya along with everything else.

I am unfamiliar with the tern shunya but this is what one highly regarded monk says of nibbana in an essay called “A Verb for Nirvana”.

Back in the days of the Buddha, nirvana (nibbana) had a verb of its own: nibbuti. It meant to “go out,” like a flame. Because fire was thought to be in a state of entrapment as it burned — both clinging to and trapped by the fuel on which it fed — its going out was seen as an unbinding. To go out was to be unbound. Sometimes another verb was used — parinibbuti — with the “pari-” meaning total or all-around, to indicate that the person unbound, unlike fire unbound, would never again be trapped.

Now that nirvana has become an English word, it should have its own English verb to convey the sense of “being unbound” as well. At present, we say that a person “reaches” nirvana or “enters” nirvana, implying that nibbana is a place where you can go. But nirvana is most emphatically not a place. It’s realized only when the mind stops defining itself in terms of place: of here, or there, or between the two.

This may seem like a word-chopper’s problem — what can a verb or two do to your practice? — but the idea of nirvana as a place has created severe misunderstandings in the past, and it could easily create misunderstandings now.
There was a time when some philosophers in India reasoned that if nirvana is one place and samsara another, then entering into nirvana leaves you stuck: you’ve limited your range of movement, for you can’t get back to samsara. Thus to solve this problem they invented what they thought was a new kind of nirvana: an unestablished nirvana, in which one could be in both places — nirvana and samsara — at once.

However, these philosophers misunderstood two important points about the Buddha’s teachings. The first was that neither samsara nor nirvana is a place. Samsara is a process of creating places, even whole worlds, (this is called becoming) and then wandering through them (this is called birth). Nirvana is the end of this process. You may be able to be in two places at once — or even develop a sense of self so infinite that you can occupy all places at once — but you can’t feed a process and experience its end at the same time. You’re either feeding samsara or you’re not. If you feel the need to course freely through both samsara and nirvana, you’re simply engaging in more samsara-ing and keeping yourself trapped.

The second point is that nirvana, from the very beginning, was realized through unestablished consciousness — one that doesn’t come or go or stay in place. There’s no way that anything unestablished can get stuck anywhere at all, for it’s not only non-localized but also undefined.
The idea of a religious ideal as lying beyond space and definition is not exclusive to the Buddha’s teachings, but issues of locality and definition, in the Buddha’s eyes, had a specific psychological meaning. This is why the non-locality of nirvana is important to understand.

Just as all phenomena are rooted in desire, consciousness localizes itself through passion. Passion is what creates the “there” on which consciousness can land or get established, whether the “there” is a form, feeling, perception, thought-construct, or a type of consciousness itself. Once consciousness gets established on any of these aggregates, it becomes attached and then proliferates, feeding on everything around it and creating all sorts of havoc. Wherever there’s attachment, that’s where you get defined as a being. You create an identity there, and in so doing you’re limited there. Even if the “there” is an infinite sense of awareness grounding, surrounding, or permeating everything else, it’s still limited, for “grounding” and so forth are aspects of place. Wherever there’s place, no matter how subtle, passion lies latent, looking for more food to feed on.

If, however, the passion can be removed, there’s no more “there” there. One sutta illustrates this with a simile: the sun shining through the eastern wall of a house and landing on the western wall. If the western wall, the ground beneath it, and the waters beneath the ground were all removed, the sunlight wouldn’t land. In the same way, if passion for form, etc., could be removed, consciousness would have no “where” to land, and so would become unestablished. This doesn’t mean that consciousness would be annihilated, simply that — like the sunlight — it would now have no locality. With no locality, it would no longer be defined.

This is why the consciousness of nirvana is said to be “without surface” (anidassanam), for it doesn’t land. Because the consciousness-aggregate covers only consciousness that is near or far, past, present, or future — i.e., in connection with space and time — consciousness without surface is not included in the aggregates. It’s not eternal because eternity is a function of time. And because non-local also means undefined, the Buddha insisted that an awakened person — unlike ordinary people — can’t be located or defined in any relation to the aggregates in this life; after death, he/she can’t be described as existing, not existing, neither, or both, because descriptions can apply only to definable things.
The essential step toward this non-localized, undefined realization is to cut back on the proliferations of consciousness. This first involves contemplating the drawbacks of keeping consciousness trapped in the process of feeding. This contemplation gives urgency to the next steps: bringing the mind to oneness in concentration, gradually refining that oneness, and then dropping it to zero. The drawbacks of feeding are most graphically described in SN 12.63, A Son’s Flesh. The process of gradually refining oneness is probably best described in MN 121, The Lesser Discourse on Emptiness, while the drop to zero is best described in the Buddha’s famous instructions to Bahiya: “‘In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard. In reference to the sensed, only the sensed. In reference to the cognized, only the cognized.’ That is how you should train yourself. When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bahiya, there is no you in connection with that. When there is no you in connection with that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress.”

With no here or there or between the two, you obviously can’t use the verb “enter” or “reach” to describe this realization, even metaphorically. Maybe we should make the word nirvana into a verb itself: “When there is no you in connection with that, you nirvana.” That way we can indicate that unbinding is an action unlike any other, and we can head off any mistaken notion about getting “stuck” in total freedom.