Thich Nhat Hanh: Nirvana as the Cessation of Wrong Views, Wrong Perceptions and Suffering

Nirvana, says Thich Nhat Hanh, is "the cessation of all suffering." It comes about, he notes, by the extinction of our wrong perceptions, wrong views, and wrong understanding.

"Meditation, the practice of looking deeply," he points out, "has the purpose of removing wrong perceptions from us. If we are able to remove our wrong perceptions," he notes, "we will be able to be free from the afflictions and the sufferings that always arise from wrong perceptions."

"You have wrong perceptions of yourself and of the other," he explains, "and the other has wrong perceptions of themselves and of you, and that is the cause of fear, violence and hatred. That is why trying to remove wrong perceptions," he points out, "is the only way to peace. And that is why nirvana is, first of all, the removal of wrong perceptions."

When you remove the wrong perceptions you remove the suffering," says Hanh. "To meditate deeply, you (will) find out that even ideas like being and non-being, birth and death, coming and going, are wrong ideas."

"If you can touch reality in depth," Hanh points out, "you realize that 'suchness' means that ultimate reality is free from birth, from dying, from coming, from going, from being, and from non-being. That is why," he concludes, "nirvana is first of all the removal of all notions and ideas that serve as the base of misunderstanding and suffering."

Samsara: The Wheel of Suffering

Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, old age and sickness is suffering, and death is suffering. Even pleasure is suffering, said the Buddha, as we know that like all phenomena, "this too shall pass." Buddhists and Vedantists alike say that to the unawakened mind this - all of our "reality" - is samsara, and because of this we suffer.

"Samsara, literally meaning "continuous flow," is the cycle of birth, life, death, rebirth or reincarnation within Hinduism, Buddhism, Bön, Jainism, Sikhism, and other Indian religions. In modern parlance, samsara refers to a place, set of objects and possessions, but originally, the word referred to a process of continuous pursuit or flow of life. In accordance with the literal meaning, the word should either refer to a continuous stream of consciousness, or the continuous but random drift of passions, desires, emotions, and experiences."

[Source: Wikipedia]

"You jump in the ocean of samsara and you can't swim," says spiritual teacher, Mooji, in the attached three-part video compilation on suffering and compassion.

Towards a New Cultural Paradigm: 'Developing Sustainability' rather than 'Sustainable Development'

In his now-classic treatise, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," Thomas Kuhn points out that new scientific paradigms emerge when there is an anomaly that the existing paradigm cannot account for, when a new theory that can account for the anomaly is put forth, and when a small but growing number of adherents coalesce around that new way of interpreting reality.

Could a new cultural paradigm be emerging in a similar fashion? Instead of mouthing platitudes about "sustainable development," is there a growing number of people "developing sustainability" at an individual level, beginning with a shift in their own consciousness? Could a paradigmatic shift in our collective consciousness emerge as a result of, and to tackle, the existential challenges that we know we face - an energy crisis, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, global warming, deforestation and mass species extinction etc.? Perhaps.

In the attached video, spiritual teacher, Adyashanti, points out that a change in our cultural paradigm is rapidly becoming "a biological necessity."

"I think we are actually at a point in time that is very unique," he notes. "Here we are, and it is very possible that in your and my lifespan we will actually experience the fulfillment of literally not being able to sustain certain things. We will run out of energy, we will run out of environment. We have weapons of  destruction that are so extreme that we can wipe ourselves out. It is very possible in the lifetime that we are living in, that we could actually come (to) see a conclusion, that non-sustainability will actually happen and we will have to deal with that. And I think we have been evolving towards that for a very, very, very long time. And, here we are."

"It is no wonder," Adyashanti observes, "that there is fanaticism breaking out in all sorts of religions and fundamentalists in all points-of-view, whether it is religions or philosophical (viewpoints). People are just dividing themselves. There are people that want to save the world, and people that want to destroy each other. They are all there. And it will be very interesting to see what happens. Because there is often at the points-of-no-return - at the point of the most dramatic tensions in life and extremes -  (that) is the very place that dramatic change and transformation can happen."

"I don't think that it's anywhere guaranteed that the change and transformation will happen," he notes. "We don't know. But it is going to go one way or another, and it's not going to be very long from right now before it goes one way or another."

"We are running out of options other than to wake up," he warns. "It is starting to become, possibly, a biological necessity of survival. And when it gets to that point, it really starts to get people's attention."

"We may destroy ourselves if we cannot actually wake up to the fact, to the living experience, that we are really the same," he notes. "It is not good enough to have the philosophy that we are really the same, because that philosophy breaks down when push comes to shove."

Clearly, it seems, we are overdue for a new cultural paradigm that is sustainable in the long-term. And such a shift in paradigms - which may already be occurring - will require the consensus of a great and growing number of individuals who see and experience themselves as being a part of something much greater than their individual selves. The crucial question, for each of us now, thus becomes: "Are we in or are we out?"

Eckhart Tolle Part I: Ego, Silence, Being and Enlightenment

Enlightened spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle,
best-selling author of "The Power of Now"
and "The New Earth: Awakening to Your
Life's Purpose."

In an uncut three-part interview, best-selling author and enlightened spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle, a German-born modern-day mystic who lives in Vancouver, sat down with the Canadian Broadcasting Company's Sandra Abrams to discuss internal silence and being, the nature of the ego and his own enlightenment experience, as detailed in his books "The Power of Now" and "The New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose."

"Most people have a voice in their head which is the usual thought processes that they are usually identified with," says Tolle. "So for most people that is their basic reality, that 'voice in the head'. And, they are so identified with these continually arising thought processes," he notes, "that they don't even know that they are identified with every thought that comes to them. They don't know that there is a 'voice in the head' because they are the 'voice in the head.'"

"To find that there is another dimension inside you," says Tolle, "where this mental noise is not operating for a while, that is like finding a depth inside yourself that perhaps you didn't know was there. And that," he notes, "essentially is a spiritual dimension. So it is really about finding that dimension in yourself where the continual mental noise for a while subsides".

"There is still an awareness of noises that you hear," he explains, "or your eyes may be open (and) you may be looking at things, but you are not labeling the noises that you hear. You are not interpreting them. You know they are there," he observes, "but you are not labeling them. The compulsive labeling that most people live with subsides for a while, and that is a tremendous liberation."



"Everybody has time for a moment of space," Tolle observes, "and it could start with taking a single thing, like taking one conscious in-and-out breath occasionally while you are waiting at the bus stop or at the traffic light, or while you are going up and down in the elevator."

"Instead of mentally projecting yourself forward to the next thing you have to do, that you are going to, or that you haven't done, why not take a moment," he asks, "when you are simply conscious of your breath?"

"Breathing in, the breath is always there, so you just put some attention on that. One conscious in-breath, feel the air going into the body, and one conscious out-breath.  During that space you have taken attention away from 'the voice in the head,'" Tolle notes, "and a little bit of space has opened up inside you. In that little space," he observes, "you feel a bit more alive. There is a certain aliveness and power in that space. Its not just nothingness; there is a power in there."

"Just to experience that you are not your thoughts" is a liberating experience that not many people find Tolle observes. "You are the awareness behind your thoughts. And to know that, you have to find that little spot inside you. In the silence."

Tollle concludes Part I of his CBC interview by talking about the dysfunction of the ego and the role it has played in human history, particularly recent human history.

"The ego is a mind-made sense of self," he explains. "The ego has a certain structure to it, (and) it needs certain things to survive.  It needs to emphasize the 'otherness' of others. It needs to judge people. It needs to immediately conceptualize and define a person that you meet. Immediately you will find judgment arising, and comparison arising. The image of who I am, (and) how does that compare to the other person. Inferiority? Superiority?" These are the ordinary functions of the ego, of which far too many people are wholly unaware, he explains.

"So there is a basic dysfunction built into the structure of the ego that works both on a personal level and on a collective level," Tolle says. And, it appears to be profoundly deep-seated and anti-social in its nature.

"There is this built in tendency to make the 'others' into enemies," he notes. "Why is that? Because the ego needs to emphasize the 'otherness.' By creating enemies outside, you have a stronger sense of who you are. But it is a false sense of who you are," he notes, pointing to the senseless wars of the 20th century.

"There is a very strong element of dysfunction in the human mind. And, really, this is what we are addressing when we become more conscious of compulsive thinking, and (when) we become conscious that we have been deriving our sense of self from what we have been telling ourselves in our minds of who we are."

"Then suddenly," says Tolle, "we see this operating in ourselves; we see this unconscious process . . . and by seeing it another dimensions has arisen. It is a profound "Awareness"" or Presence," as he calls it.

See: Eckhart Tolle Part II: Fear and Awakening

Viktor Frankl: From Suffering and Death to a Life Fully Lived

"When a man finds it is his destiny to suffer he will have to accept suffering as His Task, his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his stead. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden."

Viktor E. Frankl, "From Death Camp to Existentialism"

For those not familiar with the literary and psychological works of Viktor Frankl, a brief recounting of some crucial moments of his life story may shed light on the length and difficulties this remarkable man faced on his spiritual road from Holocaust survivor to eminent psychological theorist.

Viktor E. Frankl (1905-1997 )

In September of 1942, the newly graduated young doctor, his new bride, his mother, father, and brother, were arrested in Vienna and taken to a concentration camp in Bohemia.  It was events that occurred there and at three other camps that led the young doctor - prisoner 119,104 - to realize the significance of meaningfulness in life.

One of the earliest events to drive home the point was the loss of a manuscript - his life's work - during his transfer to Auschwitz.  He had sewn it into the lining of his coat, but was forced to discard it at the last minute.  He spent many later nights trying to reconstruct it, first in his mind, then on slips of stolen paper.

 Frankl along with 1,500 prisoners on a Geman cattle train pulled into a Polish switching yard. "Everyone's heart missed a beat at that moment," Frankl recalls. "Auschwitz -- the very name stood for all that was horrible: gas chambers, crematoriums, massacres. Slowly, almost hesitatingly, the train moved on as if it wanted to spare its passengers the dreadful realization as long as possible. Auschwitz!"

With the "fateful selection process" designating a person either to turn to the left and live, or to turn to the right and die, Frankl was spared the too-soon fate of those pointed to the right - the billowing crematoria that ran 24 hours a day at Auschwitz, and through which the earthly remains of some 1.2 million souls would ultimately pass.

Then, after this first and most essential reprieve, along with the remaining few who turned left Frankl was forced to run a gauntlet through electrified barbed wire to a showering station where they were stripped of virtually every possession they had left.  Though he tried to bargain for his precious manuscript he saw that this was fruitless and tossed it along with his clothes into the growing pile of personal possessions on the floor of the changing room to the showering shed.

"At that moment," Frankl recalls, "I saw the plain truth and did what marked the culminating point of the first phase of my psychological reaction: I struck out my whole former life."

Unlike his young wife, parents and brother, Frankl survived the war against all the odds and was able to rewrite his thesis, this time based upon the scraps of paper which outlined the profound and varied reactions that he had witnessed - both in himself and in others - to the unremitting physical and existential suffering that were the backdrop to their daily lives.



Ultimately, while Frankl posits three specific ways that an individual may come to find meaning in his or her life - through one's life work, through one's love for another, or through overcoming suffering - he notes that this generalization of itself does little good, as "the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour."

"What matters, therefore," says Frankl, "is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of life at a given moment."

"Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked, In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life  by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible."

 Thus, he urges:

"Live as if you were living already for the second time, and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!" It seems to me that there is nothing that would stimulate a man's sense of responsibleness more than this maxim, which invites him to imagine first that the present is passed, and that the past may yet be changed and amended. Such a precept confronts him with life's finiteness as well as the finality of what he makes out of both his life and himself.

[Viktor E. Frankl, "Man's Search for Meaning," p.131]

 "Live as if you were living already for the second time. . ." Is this not the existential equivalent of "die before dieing," the age-old precept and advice of the spiritual masters and sages of all ages, cultures and continents?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * 

The following audio excerpt is from the first chapter of Viktor Frankl's most famous work, "Man's Search for Meaning," the story of Frankl's insights gained in a series of Nazi concentration camps, and an outline of "logotherapy," his psychological theory of existentialism, suffering and ultimate meaning.




The remainder of "Man's Search for Meaning" is available here as an "audio book" on Youtube.