Introduction
Unit 1: Preparing the Ground
Welcome to this first unit of this program on Demystifying Nirvana, where we will endeavor to unpack this word nirvāna (or nibbāna), to demystify it so it doesn't feel impossible for us to understand, or even to achieve or attain. This is the heart of the Buddha's teaching. This is the heart of the Buddha's path of awakening and liberation.
Gathering the mind
So before we begin, let's come together to have a moment of collecting and gathering ourselves.
Establishing the quality of mindfulness grounded in the body. Feeling yourself arriving in the body and arriving in this moment.
Unifying, integrating body, mind, present moment. And listening. Listening inwardly to the life of the body, the life of the mind just now, however they may be.
A receptive attentiveness, a grounded mindfulness. Thank you.
What does it mean to be awake?
Over the course of this program, the three of us—John Peacock, Jake Dartington, and myself—will endeavor to unpack this word, nirvāna, to understand its relevance to our own lives, to understand that this is the direction of the path we cultivate, not as some distant goal, but as a present-moment cultivation.
What does it mean to be awake? What does it feel like to be unbound by familiar patterns of reactivity and compulsion?
The Buddha painted a landscape of human flourishing: a picture much vaster than just meditative experience; a landscape where we engage creatively, responsibly, ethically, with the world around us, where we can flourish.
This is the direction of the teachings
The entirety of the Buddhist teaching is dedicated to developing this liberation of the heart. What does that mean? It means that we don't feel so governed by the world of conditions. We don't feel so governed by compulsion, by so many of the patterns and cycles of reactivity. We don't feel bewildered by the distress and the struggle in our lives. This landscape of nirvāna that the Buddha paints is a landscape of very profound peace and happiness, where our arguments with how things are really have begun to fall away.
Not just a practice but a path
The Buddha speaks not just of practice, but of path. This is, I think, firstly, a really significant and important shift for us to make: that...
What we are doing here in our contemplative life is not aimed towards some transcendent experience.
Certainly, I would say the Buddha spoke about transcendence, but not transcendence of the world: transcendence of distress and struggle. This he describes as awakening.
A program designed for you
Our wish is that over the course of this program, the discussions we engage in, the material we engage in, you come to see as deeply relevant to you.
This is something you can live. This is something you can cultivate. And this gives a very profound sense of direction to the path that you are walking.
In this first unit, we have several aims. One is to contextualize this word nibbāna: how it is used in the Buddha's teaching, what is meant by nibbāna, and to unpack it so it can be understood and related to in our own experience.
We will also explore the landscape that the Buddha speaks about of an awakened mind, and how that translates into the ways that we live, into the ways that we engage with the world and with each other, and with our own inner experience.
Nibbāna, as the Buddha speaks about it, is awakening. Awakening rests upon understanding. Understanding rests upon investigation and integrity.
This is the beginning of a journey as we explore the different perspectives during this program and the different implications of what nibbāna is.
Study your way
- All of the written content of this unit is contained in a workbook, which you can download here for reference and reflection.
- A single audio file containing all of the talks from this unit is also available below.
- You can download individual audio files, such as the meditation, on the Downloads page.