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THE BUDDHIST DOCTRINE OF LIBERATION
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as a terrible emotional shock. The scriptures say that one feels then like a man who suddenly realizes that his turban is in flames. Only a shock of this kind is strong enough to galvanize the whole being into action. . . only when a man feels strongly will he act effectively. It is for this reason above all others that Buddhism starts not with a concept but with a feeling, not with intellectual postulation but with emotional experience."
Lord Buddha held the view that suffering is the central fact of every human existence. The fact of suffering and its awareness compel us to seek for its removal. By experiencing suffering we can adopt the right path towards enlightenment. Suffering is important because it gives warning to man that he is not living as he ought to live. A person who is the seeker of nirvāņa is not afraid of suffering but he accepts it joyfully. This world which is full of sufferings is nothing but the repeated process of birth and death. In order to be free from this cycle of birth and death, attachment and hatred, pleasure and pain, every gentle man must aspire for the attainment of Ultimate Truth. We come across such kind of feeling about Truth from the early Buddhist monks :
"I have lived the holy life, done all that I was to do, and am now free from all attachment. Completely destroyed is the cause of birth through cycle of existence, there is no longer the possibility of any rebirth."5
THE MEANING OF NIRVĀŅA
The literal meaning of the term nibbāna or nirvāņa is "extinction," "blowing out," "going out," "the total destruction or annihilation." The two terms nirvana and tathāgata mean complete spiritual release and total elimination of all sorts of craving, passions, attachments, ignorance, etc. In the Buddhist way, the word nirvāņa was employed either in connection with a burning fire or in connection with a burning lamp, and in both ways it meant extinction. "The word is formed from nirvy or ni-vṛ meaning tranquil, happy, ceased, and parinirvṛta in its technical sense is 'having attained nirvāṇa." The term "extinction" applies only to three flames of greed, hatred and infatuation. In short it signifies the extinction of craving.
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6.
Bhikshu Sangharakshita, A Survey of Buddhism, p. 122; The Aryan Path, vol. XXIII, pp. 55-61 (February, 1952).
After The Cultural Heritage of India, vol. I, p. 553.
Edward J. Thomas, The History of Buddhist Thought, p. 124.
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