..续本文上一页hment is nothing but the longing after rest in the midst of restlessness. Thus even craving is but an attempt to come to this natural equilibrium. That craving does not succeed in reaching the goal is again due to ignorance. What good can be expected from a thought that was born from a misconception
If the goal is misunderstood, no striving can correct that initial mistake. On the contrary, the greater effort employed the greater also the distance separating in the end.
If peace is sought for, this cannot be obtained by waging war. The only war that can put a stop to all war is the war against self. A war fought against others is a war of selfishness and can never lead to true peace. Like war and peace receive a different meaning depende, nt on the standpoint of the observer, so life and no-more-becoming obtain their respective values dependent on the point from which they are surveyed. From the worldling”s standpoint which is one of craving, life is real, because life is craving; and then from that same standpoint no-more-becoming is seen as unreal, empty, annihilation. But from a viewpoint beyond the world (lokuttara) from where the world is viewed as impermanent, sorrow-fraught and soulless, any craving is seen as a vain attempt—and life itself, which is but craving, is seen as empty and unreal, while no-more-becoming is considered as perfect deliverance and highest bliss.
Thus, though the attainment of Nibbaana can rightly be said to be the absolute content—for craving or desire under any form has become impossible—yet it cannot be hankered after (appa.nihita). But when all the fetters have been removed, fetters which arose and were maintained in ignorance, fetters which will disappear with ignorance, then that which cannot be hankered after can be realized. “Hard is the infinite to see, truth is no easy thing to see; craving is pierced by him who knows, for him who sees nothing remains.” (Udaana 8.2).
But is Nibbaana then total annihilation
Even this question is put in ignorance, for there is nothing to be annihilated. Only that which is, can be destroyed. But that which constantly arises, and in arising is nothing but a process of change, and in changing also constantly ceases, that cannot be said to be destroyed; it merely does not arise again. Now it should be well understood, that like arising in a process, similarly cessation is a process, so that even when the process of arising does not occur again, the process of cessation might not have come to stop yet. Hence we obtain a double aspect of Nibbaana.
The first one, the coming to a stop of the process of arising is called “sa-upaadisesa-nibbaana” i.e. Nibbaana with the remnant of the aggregates of craving. Life being conditioned by craving, the aggregates of life, viz. body and mind, are rightly called the aggregates of craving.
As soon as the process of the arising of craving has come to a stop, the grasping of the aggregates that form an inpidual will cease also. When the lust for life has ceased, no rebirth will take place further, and the highest state—that of an Arahat—is attained. But when the lust for life has ceased, life itself will not simultaneously disappear. As the heat in an oven, which is produced by fire, will remain for some time even though that the fire be extinct, so the result of craving which produced rebirth might remain for some time, even though the fire of the passions be extinct. Thus the acts of thought of an Arahat are neither moral nor immoral. His apperception is ineffective. Though he acts, his actions are not impelled by craving and hence they do not constitute kamma, either good or bad; they consist merely in the function (kiriyaa-javana) and are free from tendencies, likes or …
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