Lokuttara cittas - What is exactly nibbana?

B. Is a great deal of study necessary if one wants to develop vipassanā? It seems that we have to learn endless classifications and distinctions, groups and sub-groups.

 

A.

The purpose of the study of the Abhidhamma is right understanding of

realities, If one does not study at all one will not be able to judge what is the

right Path and what is the wrong Path. It depends on one's own inclination

how much one will study. We do not live in the Buddha's time and since we

therefore cannot hear the teachings directly from him, we are dependent on

the teachings as they come to us through the scriptures. 

 

B.

What is exactly nibbana? Is it a plane of life?

 

A.

If nibbāna were another plane of exsitence in which we could continue to live,

it would mean that there would continue to be for us nāma and rūpa arising

and falling away. Life is nāma and rūpa arising and falling away. Our life is

dukkha, because what arises and falls away is unsatisfactory; it is dukkha.

Nibbāna, however, is the unconditioned dhamma, it does not arise and

fall away. Nibbāna is therefore the end of dukkha. When one has attained

enlightenment, even if it is only first stage of enlightenment, it is certain that

there will eventually be an end to birth, old age, sickness and death, and

thus, an end to dukkha.

 

When the person who is not an arahat dies, the last citta of his life, the cuti-

citta death-consciousness) is succeeded by the patisandhi-citta (rebirth-

consciousness) of the next life and thus life goes on and on. As long as there

are defilements life has to continue. The fact that we are here in the human

plane is conditioned by defilements. Even if there is birth in a heavenly plane,

in a rūpa-brahma plane or in an arūpa-brahma plane, it is conditioned by

defilements.

 

The arahat has no more defilements, he does not have to be reborn in any

plane; for him there will not be, after the cuti-citta, the arising of nāma and

rūpa any more. The arahat has to die, because he was born and birth has to

be followed by death. Since his death-consciousness, however, is not

succeeded by rebirth-consciousness, it is for him the end of the cycle of birth

and death