Nirvana · Pāli: nibbāna; Skt: nirvāṇa

In the early discourses nibbāna is defined without mystery. Asked what extinguishment is, the elder Sāriputta answers that “the ending of greed, hate, and delusion is called extinguishment” (SN 38.1, trans. Bhikkhu Sujato). The same discourse names the way to it: “It is simply this noble eightfold path”, which is why nirvana and the Noble Eightfold Path are spoken of together. Nirvana is an ending rather than a destination, and what ends is the burning, not a person.

The Udāna makes the same point from the other side. There is, the Buddha says, an unborn, an unbecome, an unmade, an unfabricated; and if there were no such thing, no “escape from the born” could be discerned (Ud 8.3, trans. Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu). Nirvana is called unconditioned because, unlike everything else in experience, it is not put together out of causes; that is precisely why release from what is put together can be found at all.

Traditions share the definition and differ in emphasis. The Pali discourses present nirvana as the ending of the defilements and the escape from conditioned becoming, realised by an awakened person in this life. Mahayana keeps that and shifts the accent to the buddha who does not withdraw: as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy puts it, such buddhas “continue to manifest in various forms and in various parts of cyclic existence in order to carry on the work of benefiting beings”, and “will remain in cyclic existence until all sentient beings have reached liberation”.