Nirvana

Nirvana is liberation from samsara: the ending of suffering and of its causes, desire, aversion and ignorance. The Sanskrit word means "blowing out", the way a flame goes out once there is nothing left to burn. Tibetan translators chose nyangdé, "gone beyond sorrow". Both words describe nirvana mostly by what it is not, and that is deliberate.

Not heaven, and not nothing

In everyday English nirvana has come to mean bliss of a fairly ordinary kind, the feeling of a perfect day off. Buddhism means something else by it. Nirvana is not a place you go to after death, and it is not some supreme pleasure. Nor is it annihilation. People hear "extinguishing" and picture disappearing, but what goes out is the fire of confusion. The mind itself does not go anywhere.

When the Buddha first set out what he had understood, he did so in the Four Noble Truths. The third of them says just this: suffering can end. That was the good news. There is a way out, and it lies within human reach.

The Mahayana, on which Tibetan Buddhism builds, takes this a step further. A bodhisattva has no wish to settle into a private peace while others are still caught. So the texts speak of a non-abiding nirvana. A buddha is not stuck in samsara, but does not withdraw into quiet rest either. Wisdom keeps them free. Compassion keeps them here.

One ground

Dzogchen puts it more plainly still. Samsara and nirvana are not two places with a long road in between. They arise from the same ground, the original nature of mind. The Prayer of Samantabhadra, recited in many Nyingma communities, opens on exactly this point: one ground, two paths, two results. Recognise the ground and you are a buddha. Miss it, and you wander.

None of this makes the path redundant. Until that recognition is stable there is work to be done: turning the mind, purifying, gathering merit, receiving the blessing of the lineage. What changes is the way you walk. You are not travelling somewhere far off. You are learning to see what is already here.

At Rigdzin Dzogchen Ling that learning starts with the Ngöndro. Every Saturday in Hoofddorp we practise the Düdjom Tersar Ngöndro, which opens with the four thoughts and comes to rest in guru yoga, where you mix your own mind with the mind of the teacher. If you want to find out what all these words about nirvana come down to in practice, that is a good place to start.