..續本文上一頁nderstanding which does not lead to further formation of kamma.

　　This understanding is not to be obtained by mere reasoning. Through purity of virtue, through renunciation and mind-control, insight will grow—insight into the real nature of things. When things are seen as void of self and impermanent, they will be understood as sorrow-­fraught and the First Noble Truth will have been realized. When it is further seen that all our disappointment arises from our craving for things void and impermanent, then craving will become an impossibility. If there is no more craving, there will be no more kamma-process of becoming, resulting in rebirth. Thus while ignorance stands as the origin of all this suffering through grasping, insight alone offers the deliverance therefrom.

　　Where a beginning as ultimate origin cannot be pointed out, just because there are no entities but mere processes rolling on—because nothing has a beginning but is only a phase in the process of evolution which is always begin­ning—yet this process can come to a stop simply by no more beginning, by no more becoming.

　　Let past be past, no future longings house:

　　The past is dead, the morrow not yet born.

　　Whoso with insight scans his heart today,

　　Let him ensure eternal changelessness!”

　　 (Bhaddekaratta Sutta, MN 131).

　　This goal cannot be attained by striving, for striving under any form keeps the process moving. But the truth has to be lived so that it may grow naturally, till the light of insight will have dispelled all shadows of ignorance, and the deliverance from all craving, which is the bliss beyond all feeling, will have surmounted all happiness and sorrow in the cessation of becoming, Nibbaana.

　　Nibbaana

　　Sorrow is found in all three worlds,

　　Its origin by craving wrought,

　　Its ceasing is Nibbaana called,

　　The path thereto transcendent thought.

　　(Abhidhammatthasa.ngaha 509)

　　Once more we must make the universal fact of suffer­ing the starting point of our quest. And if this time our goal is the highest, the best, the final attainment of Nibbaana, even that goal ought to be understood in the light of the truth or suffering. For Nibbaana is the deliverance from all sorrow.

　　This certainly is not a subject for speculations. As sorrow must be understood and experienced, so the deliverance therefrom must both be understood and experi­enced. And only he who has experienced will understand. But that understanding cannot benefit others except in the way of encouragement to follow up along the same path, so that we too may learn and discern, understand and experience “each one for himself” (paccatta.m).

　　“As a departure from that kind of craving, which is lust, it is called Nibbaana” (vaanasa.nkhaataaya ta.nhaaya nik­khantattaa nibbaanan”ti vuccati Abhidh-s 458).

　　Even if Nibbaana, objectively considered, is viewed as the absolute truth, the ultimate reality, the highest per­fection, the further shore, the final goal, and bliss supreme—yet it must never be overlooked that this objectivity is entirely due to our subjective viewpoint. Even if Nibbaana is often described in terms of positive happiness like peace, bliss, calm, permanence, freedom, deliverance—this is only so through the departure of all that had the nature of a fetter to rebirth and sorrow.

　　Certainly Nibbaana is the highest bliss (parama.m sukha.m). But if this bliss be understood as a blissful experience, a happy feeling or sensation, Nibbaana would be subject to impermanence and sorrow, because all feelings, perceptions, mental formations and concepts are impermanent and there­fore sorrow-fraught. Happiness which can be experienced is, therefore, not the highest bliss, because it bears within itself the germ of dissolution. The highest bliss, therefore, must be bey…

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