Is Nibbána Nothingness

　　To say that Nibbána is nothingness simply because one cannot perceive it with the five senses, is as illogical as to say that light does not exist simply because the blind do not see it. In the well-known fable the fish who was acquainted only with water arguing with the turtle, triumphantly concluded that there existed no land, because he received “no” to all his queries. The turtle, though acquainted with both sea and land, could not explain to the fish the real nature of land.” The fish too could not grasp what land was as it was acquainted the water. In the same way the Arahants, who are acquainted with mundane and the supra-mundane cannot define exactly what supra-mundane is by mundane terms, nor can a worldling understand the supra-mundane merely by mundane knowledge. It is a supra-mundane state, which is to be realized by one”s own intuitive knowledge.

　　What Nibbána is not, one can definitely say. What it precisely is, one cannot adequately express in conventional terms. It is for self-realization.