In this very moment Mmedo’s mother, who lives and works in Conakry in Guinea, is trying to stay as safe as she can. The military has taken over the streets following public demonstrations against their political leader Lansana Conté. She is only allowed to go out between 4pm and 8pm. She responded to the email regarding Parinirvana Day by saying that Nirvana seems to be everywhere and for everyone and that at this moment it relates well to her. If anything, she now has the time to contemplate.

Contemplation does require time away from daily chores and worldly matters. Historically, one might observe that it has also been the prerogative of many great thinkers to have had time on their hands. Saying this, it is at least questionable whether any thinker has been successful in finding anything other than what is human and worldly. The question is how we are to express this void that Buddhism say exists in contemplation. Wittgenstein very nicely pointed out that the language philosophers apply is grounded in our practical, physical world. Indeed, a language is for communication with other people about a shared world. My thought is that if Nirvana can’t be comprehended with thoughts, then how do we know Nirvana exists.

So how can Buddhism claim to have found the way to Nirvana? Actually, it doesn’t really. Apart from the exception of Buddha himself who said ‘I have eliminated attachment and gained liberation’1 the Buddhist claim is that only separation from life leads to complete Nirvana. I’ll have to wait for death then it seems…

It is still fascinating that Meditation is thought to prepare one for complete Nirvana. It seems to be some sort of journey towards nothingness. Along the way, our human attachments fall off bringing one closer and closer to the end, which is really a new beginning; but a beginning of what? I would love to be able to meditate so I could understand this journey but I am worrying that I would feel nothing at all. And I am definitely not sure that it would make me happier. Buddha probably would have told me that using happiness to define what transcends the human is inappropriate. But, why would I want to meditate if not to make myself happier?

I have tried, in the past, to meditate. I was never guided by a guru, nor was the environment suitably peaceful but I had designated time consistently for two weeks just to meditate. It was evening, nice and dark and I had a candle. Still, it never worked very well, in fact I got really quite anxious as a result. Reading up on meditation now, I realize that the journey towards success is usually much longer than two weeks. I did, most likely, expect more results than I should have. I have come across five main obstacles common in meditation and that one will have to struggle to overcome for quite some time before they disappear:
1.  Sensual desire (abhidya)
2.  Ill will, hatred, or anger (pradosha)
3.  Laziness and sluggishness (styana and middha)
4.  Restlessness and worry (anuddhatya and kaukritya)
5.  Doubt (vichikitsa)2

I can confidently say that I had them all, especially restlessness and doubt. It is interesting how religious doubt (I am assuming that meditation has to do with finding religious meaning) is different from the type of doubting we do in everyday life. Everyday doubting is linked to facts and factual events or to people and their opinions. Religious doubt, on the other hand, is different because it supposedly concerns metaphysical experience. If I am attracted to the idea of meditation because someone else has told me that meditation has enriched his or her life, I possess no cognitional ground on which to understand that person. All I can do is to bravely throw myself into it head first and to remain open to whatever comes out. It is therefore possible that religious doubt stays with a person, even the religious one, as long as we live and have thoughts. For, is it not the case that as soon as one tries to conceptualise religious experience it disintegrates into doubt; to express and share a religious experience being impossible.
In any case, today is the day when Buddha is thought to have died. His real name was Siddhārtha Gotama and he lived between c.563-c.483 B.C. He started to travel at the age of twenty-nine to achieve enlightenment and apparently did so at the age of thirty-five. He took from Indian tradition the belief in karma (fruits of action) and samsāra (wheel of rebirth). He believed that escape from this wheel was the highest good and thus his teachings offered a way to achieve this escape.3
Buddha thought that the reason for rebirth was the desire for some very human things like wealth, pleasure, power and continued existence. The only way out of this was by following his eightfold path: right speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, concentration, views and intentions. I have to say that I don’t think I would mind being reborn a few times just to avoid having to take this path seriously. It would make me very rebellious if someone was trying to make me act according to these principles.

1: http://www.nirvanasutra.org.uk/

2: http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/meditation.html

3: The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 2001

4: http://www.silk-elephant.com/sculptures/laughing-buddha