Who Enters Nirvana?

 

“Nirvana is also like this: All languages perish, non-said or discussed, and non-found; who, then, should be the attainer? If there were nirvana, it would also have no-attainer!"

The Hundred Verse Treatise (The Śataśāstra), Vol. 2 

「……涅槃亦如是，一切語滅，無可論說，是無所有，誰當得者！設有涅槃，亦無得者！」

《百論》卷2〈破常品 9〉

Remarks: 

If nirvana is incomprehensible and untrue, why should the Buddha go through the three turnings of the Dharma Wheel to teach the Buddha Dharma? After totally abandoning the illusory five-aggregate self with no more future rebirth, if no permanent Dharma exists, one will be reduced to nothingness or nihilistic emptiness. Thus, there will be no attainer of nirvana. 

We often hear that srāvakas can enter the remainderless nirvana when they pass away as they have fully completed the contemplation of the four bases of mindfulness (caturṇāṃ smṛty-upasthānānām) and the eightfold path to eliminate the five-aggregate self. Their various sufferings will vanish, and they will be in a state of absolute tranquility. That is, the mode of total eradication of the five aggregates denotes the remainderless nirvana. However, we should bear in mind that the notion of nirvana is not tantamount to nihilism because the apex of truth still exists. Thus, our Buddhist cultivation will not be rendered in vain by endless transmigrations. The apex of truth inherently and permanently exists as the core object for bodhisattvas to realize and attain awakening to. Even if a Buddha does not appear in the current world to teach this True Dharma, this Dharma remains.

The Buddha also taught in The Madhyama Āgama, Vol. 7, that “one who sees dependent origination sees the Dharma; one who sees the Dharma sees dependent origination.” “Dharma” here refers to the root cause of the phenomenal world in which all dharmas arise interdependently; it is an everlasting dharma and neither arises nor ceases and neither increases nor decreases. Therefore, nirvana denotes the apex of truth, the unconditioned Dharma, the eighth vijnana that inherently exists without an attainer.

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