What is nibbana? Nirvana in Buddhism, from the suttas

What is nibbana? The meaning of the word, how the suttas describe it, its two elements, and the path that leads there

Nibbana is the goal of the Buddha's teaching: the complete ending of greed, hatred and delusion, and with them the end of suffering. The word is Pali (nibbāna); its Sanskrit form, nirvāṇa, is the one most English readers know, so 'nirvana in Buddhism' and 'nibbana' mean the same thing. This page answers the question 'what is nibbana?' from the early texts: what the word means, how the Buddha's disciples defined it, the two elements of nibbana, the Buddha's own inspired sayings about it, what can and cannot be said, and the path that leads there.

The word nibbana: a fire going out

In everyday Pali, the verb from the same root as nibbana is used of a fire or a lamp going out, and nibbuta describes something that has cooled or been quenched. So nibbana means going out, extinguishing, cooling. It does not mean a place where someone goes to live. The image fits the Buddha's Fire Sermon, where the senses and their objects are said to be burning with the fires of greed, hatred and delusion. Nibbana is those fires going out. A verse in the Ratana Sutta uses the image of a lamp:

Khīṇaṁ purāṇaṁ nava natthi sambhavaṁ,
Virattacittāyatike bhavasmiṁ;
Te khīṇabījā avirūḷhichandā,
Nibbanti dhīrā yathāyaṁ padīpo;
The old is used up, nothing new comes into being; their minds no longer long for a future existence. Their seeds spent, with no wish left to grow, the wise go out like this lamp.
Snp 2.1

The verse makes clear what goes out: not a person but the fuel. Craving is the seed of new existence; when the seed is spent, nothing feeds the fire. In Thai the word is นิพพาน, read nip-phan.

A woman kneeling beside a small brass lamp that has just gone out, a thin line of smoke rising.

What is nibbana? The definition in SN 38.1

The plainest definition in the suttas comes from a conversation between Venerable Sāriputta and the wanderer Jambukhādaka, near the village of Nālaka in Magadha.

“‘Nibbānaṁ, nibbānan’ti, āvuso sāriputta, vuccati.
Katamaṁ nu kho, āvuso, nibbānan”ti?
“Yo kho, āvuso, rāgakkhayo dosakkhayo mohakkhayo—
idaṁ vuccati nibbānan”ti.
'Friend Sāriputta, people speak of “nibbana, nibbana”. What is nibbana?' 'Friend, the ending of greed, the ending of hatred, the ending of delusion: this is called nibbana.'
SN 38.1

Notice that nibbana is defined by what ends, not by what is gained. Greed, hatred and delusion are the roots of unwholesome action; when all three are gone for good, the suffering that grows from them is gone too. Asked whether there is a path to realise it, Sāriputta says there is: the noble eightfold path. Jambukhādaka replies that it is a fine path, a fine practice, and enough reason to be diligent.

The two elements of nibbana

In the Itivuttaka (Iti 44) the Buddha speaks of two elements of nibbana. Both belong to an arahant, someone fully awakened, whose defilements are ended, who has done what had to be done and has laid down the burden.

“Dvemā, bhikkhave, nibbānadhātuyo.
Katamā dve?
Saupādisesā ca nibbānadhātu,
anupādisesā ca nibbānadhātu.
Mendicants, there are these two elements of nibbana. Which two? The element of nibbana with residue remaining, and the element of nibbana with no residue remaining.
Iti 44

With residue (saupādisesā): the arahant is still alive. The five senses still work, so they still meet the agreeable and the disagreeable and feel pleasure and pain. But greed, hatred and delusion have ended in them. That ending, while life goes on, is the first element of nibbana.
Without residue (anupādisesā): for the arahant, the sutta says, everything that is felt, no longer delighted in, will become cool right here. This is the ending at the close of life, when the aggregates, no longer fed by craving, come to rest.

Tassa idheva, bhikkhave, sabbavedayitāni
anabhinanditāni sīti bhavissanti.
For them, mendicants, everything that is felt, no longer relished, will become cool right here.
Iti 44

The verse that closes the sutta says the first element belongs to this life and the second to what comes after it, 'where all states of existence cease'. When the Buddha himself passed away, the texts call it his parinibbana, his final nibbana. His last words are on the page the Buddha's last words.

Nirvana in Buddhism: the Buddha's inspired sayings

The Udāna is a collection of short inspired sayings, and it has a group of four about nibbana. Two of them are among the most quoted lines in the canon. The first (Ud 8.1) describes nibbana by listing what it is not:

“Atthi, bhikkhave, tadāyatanaṁ,
yattha neva pathavī, na āpo, na tejo, na vāyo,
na ākāsānañcāyatanaṁ, na viññāṇañcāyatanaṁ,
na ākiñcaññāyatanaṁ, na nevasaññānāsaññāyatanaṁ,
nāyaṁ loko, na paraloko, na ubho candimasūriyā.
Tatrāpāhaṁ, bhikkhave, neva āgatiṁ vadāmi,
na gatiṁ, na ṭhitiṁ, na cutiṁ, na upapattiṁ;
appatiṭṭhaṁ, appavattaṁ, anārammaṇamevetaṁ.
Esevanto dukkhassā”ti.
There is, mendicants, that sphere where there is no earth, no water, no fire, no air; no sphere of infinite space, no sphere of infinite consciousness, no sphere of nothingness, no sphere of neither perception nor non-perception; neither this world nor another world, nor sun and moon. There, mendicants, I say, there is no coming, no going, no staying, no passing away and no rebirth. It has no support, it does not move on, it has no object. Just this is the end of suffering.
Ud 8.1

The list rules out the four elements of matter, the four formless meditative states, this world and the next. So nibbana is not a subtle kind of matter, not a very deep meditation, and not a heaven. The second saying (Ud 8.3) speaks of the unconditioned:

“Atthi, bhikkhave, ajātaṁ abhūtaṁ akataṁ asaṅkhataṁ.
No cetaṁ, bhikkhave, abhavissa ajātaṁ abhūtaṁ akataṁ asaṅkhataṁ,
nayidha jātassa bhūtassa katassa saṅkhatassa nissaraṇaṁ paññāyetha.
Yasmā ca kho, bhikkhave, atthi ajātaṁ abhūtaṁ akataṁ asaṅkhataṁ,
tasmā jātassa bhūtassa katassa saṅkhatassa nissaraṇaṁ paññāyatī”ti.
There is, mendicants, the unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned. If there were not the unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, no escape would be known here from the born, become, made and conditioned. But because there is the unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, an escape is known from the born, become, made and conditioned.
Ud 8.3

Everything else we know is born, comes to be, is made and depends on conditions, and so must end, as the page on dukkha explains. The Buddha's point here is that this is not the whole story: there is a way out, and nibbana is real.

What can and cannot be said

The suttas are careful here, and it helps to follow them. What can be said about nibbana:

It is the ending of greed, hatred and delusion (SN 38.1), and so the end of suffering (Ud 8.1).
It is unconditioned (asaṅkhata): not produced by causes, and so not subject to decay.
It is the highest. A verse that sums up the teaching of all Buddhas says so plainly.
It is to be realised, seen for oneself rather than merely believed. That is the task the first sermon gives the third noble truth.

Khantī paramaṁ tapo titikkhā,
Nibbānaṁ paramaṁ vadanti buddhā;
Patient endurance is the highest austerity; the Buddhas declare nibbana supreme.
Dhp 184

What cannot be said, or would be a mistake to say:

It is not a place or a heaven. Ud 8.1 rules out this world and any other.
It is not the destruction of a self, because the teaching of anatta says there was never a lasting self to destroy. What ends is greed, hatred, delusion and the suffering they bring.
It is not a state of mind you enter and leave like a deep meditation. Even the highest formless states are on the Ud 8.1 list of what nibbana is not.
Where a fully awakened person goes after death cannot be answered in ordinary terms. In the Aggivacchagotta Sutta (MN 72), the Buddha asks in which direction a fire that has gone out has gone: east, west, north or south? The question does not apply to the fire, and it does not apply to a fully awakened one either.

The path there

Because nibbana is unconditioned, the path does not create it; the path removes what keeps it from being seen. That path is the noble eightfold path, practised as virtue, concentration and wisdom. In meditation the turning point comes with insight: seeing body and mind as impermanent, unsatisfying and not-self until clinging lets go. The stages of insight describe how this seeing unfolds.

The suttas describe four stages of awakening along the way. A stream-enterer has seen nibbana for the first time and has dropped three fetters: the view of a lasting self, doubt about the path, and clinging to rules and rituals as enough in themselves. A once-returner has further weakened greed, hatred and delusion. A non-returner has ended sense desire and ill will completely. An arahant has ended all the fetters, down to the subtlest: desire for refined existence, conceit, restlessness and ignorance. Each stage is a deeper touch of the same peace.

Concentration supports the way. Deep stillness such as jhana makes the mind clear enough to see, but stillness alone is not nibbana. In MN 26 the Buddha tells how, before his awakening, he mastered the formless attainments under two teachers and then left them, because those states did not lead to the end of suffering.

Glimpses of cooling in daily life

Nibbana is the end of the road, but the direction can be felt from the start. Each time anger passes without being fed, or a craving is seen and let go, the mind cools a little. These moments are not nibbana, and it is wise not to call them that. But they show in small what the word points to: peace that comes from letting go, not from getting more. Giving, keeping the precepts and sitting each day all lean the mind that way. The four noble truths frame it simply: suffering is to be understood, craving given up, its cessation realised and the path developed.

What is nibbana? In short

Nibbana is the going out of the fires of greed, hatred and delusion, and so the end of suffering. The suttas define it by what ends, describe it as unborn and unconditioned, and warn against turning it into a place or a nothingness. It can be realised in this life, and the noble eightfold path is the way there.

Based on: Nibbānapañhā Sutta, a question about nibbana (SN 38.1) · Nibbānadhātu Sutta, the elements of nibbana (Iti 44) · First discourse about nibbana (Ud 8.1) · Third discourse about nibbana (Ud 8.3) · Ratana Sutta (Snp 2.1) · Dhammapada, chapter on the Buddha (Dhp 184) · Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (SN 56.11) · Pāsarāsi Sutta (the noble search) (MN 26) · Aggivacchagotta Sutta (MN 72)