nirvana quotes Flashcards
Cush: ‘leaving a…
mind peaveful, tranquil, clear, a sharp tool ready to pierce into reality’
PC: ‘the mind has…
come to the end of craving’
apophatic desc. (Dhammapada, PC): ‘the plane where…
there is neither extension nor motion, nor the plane of infinite ether, neither this world nor another’
PC: ‘the plane of neither…
perception nor non-perception’
Scholar Rahula: ‘[our language is] too…
poor to express its ultimate reality’
symbolic desc. (metaphors) PC: ‘nirvana is…
a cool cave, the island in the floods, the farther shore, the holy city’
paradoxical desc. PC: ‘nirvana should…
be attained by means of non-attainment’
QoKM: ‘do those who…
have not had their hands and feet cut off know how hard it is to have them cut off?’
(Yes - why do they?)
‘from hearing the lamentations of those who have been cut off’
QoKM:
‘nirvana shares one quality with the lotus, two with water, three with medicine, ten with space, three with the wishing jewel, and five with a mountain peak’
‘as medicine puts an end to sickness, nirvana puts an end to all sufferings’
QoKM: wind
‘one cannot point to the wind like that for the wind does not lend itself to being grasped with the hands, or to being untouched. But nevertheless, there is such a thing called wind’
‘Just so, there is Nirvana, but one cannot point to nirvana, either by its colour or shape
Cush: ‘nirvana cannot…
be understood, only experienced. To talk about it is like talking colours to a blind person, or dry land to a fish’
Gombrich: ‘the buddha considered…
the experience of enlightenment to be irreversible and unforgettable’
