can someone please explain to me Buddhists beliefs about nirvana, enlightenment, and the self?? i know that Buddhists dint believe in the self, but then what do they believe there mind is?? its all kind of confusing, can someone clarify for me?
I am just a poor boy.
Though my story's seldom told,
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocketful of mumbles,
Such are promises
All lies and jest
Still, a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest.
According to the Gospel of Buddha by Carus pg. 217 and 218 (From Ceylon sources):
"Ananda said to the Blessed One, ?Who shall teach us when thou art gone?'
And the Blessed one replied, 'I am not the first Buddha who came upon the earth nor shall I be the last. In due time another Buddha will arise in the world, a holy one, a supremely enlightened one, endowed with wisdom in conduct, auspicious, knowing the universe, an incomparable leader of men, a master of angels and mortals. He will reveal to you the same eternal truths, which I have taught you. He will preach his religion, glorious in its origin, glorious at the climax and glorious at the goal. He will proclaim a religious life, wholly perfect and pure such as I now proclaim. His disciples will number many thousands while mine number many hundreds.'
Ananda said, 'How shall we know him?'
The Blessed one replied, 'He will be known as Maitreya'."
(i) The Sanskrit word ?Maitreya? or its equivalent in Pali ?Metteyya? means loving, compassionate, merciful and benevolent. It also means kindness and friendliness, sympathy, etc. One Arabic word which is equivalent to all these words is ?Rahmat?. In Surah Al-Anbiya:
"We sent thee not, but as a mercy for all creatures."
[Al-Qur?an 21:107]
Prophet Muhammad (pub) was called the merciful, which is ?Maitri?.
(ii) The words Mercy and Merciful are mentioned in the Holy Qur?an no less than 409 times.
(iii) Every chapter of the Glorious Qur?an, except Chapter 9, i.e. Surah Taubah begins with the beautiful formula, 'Bismillah Hir-Rahman Nir-Rahim', which means 'In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful'.
(iv) The Word Muhammad is also spelt as ?Mahamet? or ?Mahomet? and in various other ways in different languages. The word ?Maho? or ?Maha? in Pali and Sanskrit mean Great and Illustrious and ?Metta? means mercy. Therefore ?Mahomet? means ?Great Mercy?.
The self seeks after desires, the root of all suffering.
Enlightenment is fully understanding the 4 Noble Truths
http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/fourtruths.html
and the Law of Dependent Origination
http://www.what-buddha-taught.net/Books3/Payutto_Bhikkhu_Dependent_Origination.htm
Nirvana is the state at which all desires have been exhausted and cannot form again.
It is not about not believing in the self. You need yourself for confidence for moving on.
But you will have try being outward in your actions such as loving, giving, forgiving, understanding, sharing, and compassionate.
Enlightenment or Nirvana should not even be your goal but being right in all your ways may lead one to that. Right thought, right words out of the mouth, right action, in the right way, in the right time, in the right place with all the right intentions.
Be good not because there is a reward, but because it is right to be good and it is good to be right. Buddhism never puts fear into the mind because in its forgiving nature, there is a always a chance to become better. Instead of hell, our spirit goes into cycle of spiraling motion to perfection.
People make these things more mystifying than they need to be. In the Pali Canon the Buddha explains them in a quite straightforward manner.
Nirvana simply means the extinguishing (some Sanskrit scholars say it should be translated as "unbinding") greed, hatred, and delusion. What kind of delusion is extinguished? Specifically the delusion that conditioned things are permanent, can provide lasting happiness, and can be identified as the basis for a substantial self. Here is an article about nirvana as the Buddha taught it:
Bodhi has been translated as "enlightenment" but really it means "awakening." Specifically the Buddha awakened to the true nature of reality - how all conditioned phenomena are impermanent, incapable of providing lasting happiness, and how all phenomena are without a self-nature. Here is an article of the Buddha's life story up to his awakening:
The Buddha taught that when we examine ourselves we find five components or aggregates. These are form (our bodies and objects perceived by the senses), feelings (of pain, pleasure, or neutral sensations), perceptions (recognition of what things are), mental formations (emotional and conceptual reactions and impulses), and consciousness (awareness of the other four aggregates). Outside of these five the Buddha said there is nothing that we can claim as part of our lived experience. Examining these five, we find that they are all impermanent and interdependent. None of them are a candidate for an independent unchanging self, and aside from them any self we could imagine would only be an abstraction. So ultimately there is no essence or entity that is the "self" but conventionally we can speak of an ever-changing interdependent self based on the five aggregates. For more on this see this article:
Self is the illusions feeling that something permanent (e.g. soul) dwell inside us.
Enlightenment is a stage in Buddhist practice where we find out there is no such thing inside us.
Nirvana is what we experience during enlightenment.
Buddhism questions....?
