The Signless and the Deathless
On the Realization of Nirvana
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- $22.99
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- $22.99
Publisher Description
An insightful examination of the end of suffering that draws much-needed attention to two overlooked factors of Nirvana: signlessness and deathlessness.
Nirvana is a critical part of the Buddhist path, though it remains a difficult concept to fully understand for Buddhist practitioners. In The Signless and the Deathless: On the Realization of Nirvana, scholar-monk Bhikkhu Analayo breaks new ground, or rediscovers old ground, by showing the reader that realizing Nirvana entails “a complete stepping out of the way the mind usually constructs experience.”
With his extraordinary mastery of canonical Buddhist languages, Venerable Analayo first takes the reader through discussions in early Buddhist suttas on signs (Pali nimitta), the characteristic marks of things that signal to us what they are, and on cultivating concentration on signlessness as a meditative practice. Through practicing bare awareness, we can stop defilements that come from grasping at signs—and stop signs from arising in the first place.
He then turns to deathlessness. Deftly avoiding the extremes of nihilism and eternalism that often cloud our understanding of Nirvana, Venerable Analayo shows us that deathless as an epithet of Nirvana “stands for the complete transcendence of mental affliction by mortality”—ours or others’—and that it is achievable while still alive.
Advanced practitioners and scholars alike will value the work for its meticulous academic expertise and its novel way of explaining the highest of all Buddhist goals—the final end of suffering.
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In this edifying study, Buddhist monk Analayo (Early Buddhist Oral Tradition) combs through early Buddhist writings that examine how to achieve nirvana by sidestepping the mind's habitual methods for constructing experience out of raw sensory data. The author begins with a discussion of the nimitta, or sign—the "characteristic mark of things" that is picked up by the mind to make "sense of experiences through the operation of perception" and reinforces the notion that permanence exists in the world ("To perceive is to grasp a sign of permanence in something.... A sign has to remain unchanged until one returns to it," according to Buddhist thinker Ñāṇananda). Analayo argues that "signless" concentration can be achieved by cultivating "sense restraint," which requires one to "notice when... processing of the sensory data takes up biased signs and veers off into unwholesome territory," thereby paving the way for nirvana, which entails "a complete stepping out of the construction of experience." Though Analyo's forays into subtle differences in early Buddhist discourses (for example, differences between Chinese and Pali terms) can feel esoteric, he presents text-based Buddhist theory with methodical clarity and exacting attention to detail. Though best suited for those with some Buddhist knowledge already under their belts, this is sure to enlighten.
