Korea Journal of Buddhist Studies ISSN:1598-0642(Print) 불교학연구

The present paper is an attempt to elucidate the various explanations of Nibbāna in the Nikāyas in the light of the Buddha’s two types of statement: conventional language and absolute language. The former belongs to conventional truth (sammuti- sacca), and the latter, to absolute truth (paramattha-sacca). In absolute language Nibbāna is often referred to by such negative terms as ‘Extinction of becoming’, ‘Extinction of craving’, ‘Absence of desire’, ‘Cessation’, ‘Unconditioned’, and so on. To show what must be done to attain Nibbāna, and to exclude essentialism, the Buddha describes it as such. At the same time, he regularly makes use of conventional language. Thus, sometimes, positive terms like ‘highest bliss’, ‘further shore’, ‘cave of shelter’, ‘island’, ‘refuge’, and so on are used to denote Nibbāna. They are mostly metaphorical. To show Nibbāna as a goal capable of attainment and truly desirable, and to exclude the nihilistic extreme, the Buddha describes it as such. The question on the nature of Nibbāna is placed in their correct perspective by the recognition of the Buddha’s two types of statement. Although the Buddha describes Nibbāna in two types of statement, they do not imply that what is true in the one sense, is false in the other or even that the one kind of truth was superior to the other. If the Early Buddhist concept of Nibbāna is to be understood correctly, one will have to give full weight to the significance of both type of utterance. If one were to quote only one type as a vindication of one’s own one-sided opinion, the result would be a lop-sided view. The truth is in between, that is, in the Middle Path (majjhima-paṭipadā). The Buddha’s two types of statement were fashioned as a counter to essentialism represented by nirvāṇa-existence on the one hand, and nihilism represented by nirvāṇa-annihilation on the other. This logical structure is called the two kinds of truth (duve saccāni), which is an expression of the Buddha’s compassion (anukampati) and pity (karuṇā) towards all living beings.