English Collection

日頃目に付いた覚えたい英単語、慣用句などの表現についてのメモです。

nirvana

2023年05月06日 | 英単語
Yuval Noah Harariの "Sapiens" を読んでいます。 'The Law of Religion' の章から仏教に関する記述を抜粋します。

That 'suffering arises from craving' is always and everywhere true, just as in modern physics E always equals mc2.
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Buddhism does not deny the existence of gods -- they are described as powerful beings who can bring rains and victories -- but they have no influence on the law that suffering arises from craving.
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If the mind of a person is free of all craving, no god can make him miserable. Conversely, once craving arises in a person's mind, all the gods in the universe cannot save him from suffering.
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However, 99 per cent of Buddhists did not attain nirvana, and even if they hoped to do so in some future lifetime, they devoted most of their present lives to the pursuit of mundane achievements.

宗教は人間が作ったもので、仏教、神道、キリスト教等々、何れも私は興味ありませんが、Harari氏の説明は分かり易いので納得できます。
"nirvana" はいわゆる涅槃を指していて、一切の煩悩を断ち切り、悟りの境地に至ったことだと理解しています。 引用文の "If the mind of a person is free of all craving" の個所がそれに相当しています。 "nirvana" の英英辞書での説明を見ます。

・Collins Dictionary: final release from the cycle of reincarnation attained by extinction of all desires and individual existence, culminating (in Buddhism) in absolute blessedness, or (in Hinduism) in absorption into Brahman
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a state of freedom from all suffering that Buddhists believe can be achieved by removing all personal wishes: The high streets are no nirvana for shoppers.

・Vocabulary.com: Nirvana is a place of perfect peace and happiness, like heaven. In Buddhism, nirvana is the highest state that someone can attain, a state of enlightenment, meaning a person's individual desires and suffering go away.
The origin of the word nirvana relates to religious enlightenment; it comes from the Sanskrit meaning "extinction, disappearance" of the individual to the universal. Achieving nirvana is to make earthly feelings like suffering and desire disappear. It's often used casually to mean any place of happiness, like if you love chocolate, going to Hershey's Park would be nirvana. On the other hand, if you're a Buddhist monk, it may take you years of meditating to reach nirvana.
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