Enjoying the Ultimate: Commentary on the Nirvana Chapter of the Chinese Dharmapada by Thich Nhat Hanh

Author:Thich Nhat Hanh [Nhat Hanh, Thich]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BODY; MIND & SPIRIT, Mindfulness & Meditation, philosophy, Eastern, Religion, buddhism, zen
ISBN: 9781946764836
Google: wc0AEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Parallax Press
Published: 2021-09-21T23:21:02.401952+00:00

Verse 12

When there is no more coming and going, birth and death end also.

With the ending of birth and death, how can there be discrimination between this and that?

The idea of this as well as the idea of that have ended.

The absolute silence that is nirvāṇa is the release from a world of suffering.

往 來 絕 無 生 死

生 死 斷 無 此 彼

此 彼 斷 為 兩 滅

滅 無 餘 為 苦 除

When there is no more coming and going, birth and death end also.

Birth and death can be seen as a kind of coming and going: we are born and we come into life, we die and we go out of life. Then we are born again, and we come into life again, and so on. Once the ideas of coming and going are ended, the ideas of birth and death are also ended.

With the ending of birth and death, how can there be discrimination between this and that?

Once the ideas of birth and death are ended, there are no more ideas of “this” and “that.” “This” and “that” are a discrimination: “This is I, and that is you.” This is the subject, and that is the object. This is the body, and that is the mind. All these kinds of discrimination have come to an end.

The idea of this as well as the idea of that have ended.

When “this” ends, “that” also ends. The two ideas end together. The word 兩 (liang) means dualistic, which here refers to dualistic thinking or dualistic view, which are the result of double grasping. Once the idea of the subject is ended, the idea of the object also ends. When birth and death end, when this and that end, then the dualistic way of perceiving also ends.

The absolute silence that is nirvāṇa is the release from a world of suffering.

The absolute silence is the silencing of all ideas, and this ends all suffering. Silence means ending our ideas of happiness and suffering, still or in motion, coming and going. In nirvāṇa there is no more discrimination between happiness and suffering. We know how to handle suffering, and we know how to handle happiness. We know that happiness and suffering inter-are. We no longer choose to run after happiness and away from suffering. The mind of discrimination is no longer there. In the world of birth and death, the world of saṃsāra, there is suffering. But behind that suffering, deep in the heart of the world of suffering, there is the world of no-birth and no-death, no-coming and no-going.

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