The Third Noble Truth

We will now proceed to dwell on the Third Noble Truth, which declares that with the cessation of taṇhā or craving, dukkha ceases to exist. You can see for yourself that the Third Noble Truth is a corollary to the Second Noble Truth. If craving is the cause of dukkha, then surely the cessation of craving must mean the cessation of dukkha. Kill the germ and the disease is killed. Remove the cause and the effect is removed. This is the import of the Third Noble Truth. If there was no Third Noble Truth, well might Buddhism have been called a doctrine of pessimism and gloom but with the Third Noble Truth followed by the Fourth, it is a doctrine radiating with hope and joy.

Let us understand the Third Noble Truth in the way it has been enunciated by the Buddha. “What now, O Bhikkhus, is the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering?” “Yo tassa yeva taṇhāya asesa-virāga-nirodho”—it is the Cessation of craving without a trace of it left behind, cāgo —the abandonment of it, paṭinissaggo—the renunciation of it, mutti—the liberation from it, anālayo—the detachment from it. “Idaṃ vuccati, bhikkhave, dukkhanirodhaṃ ariyasaccaṃ.” “This, O Monks, is the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering.”

As a result of this string of words employed in this description to emphasize more or less the same idea from different aspects, a few conclusions emerge. The first is that the renunciation of craving can be complete. The next is that, judging from the words used—cessation, abandonment, renunciation, liberation, detachment—what is contemplated is not a forcible control or suppression of craving but a voluntary abandonment, a letting go. The thought also emerges that craving is a dangerous burden to carry with us in the journey of life, a hurtful appendage which must be abandoned and dropped without the slightest delay in order to ensure a comfortable journey. It is this Third Truth which affirms that craving is not an inseparable appendage but that it can be abandoned and dropped. The very expression “dukkha nirodha”—cessation of suffering—implies this.

Let us consider the effects on the mind of this complete abandonment of craving, this complete renunciation. A person who has completely ceased to crave is none other than an arahant and therefore in considering the effects on the mind of the cessation of craving, we are considering the nature of the arahant-mind. It is a psychological marvel.

The arahant cannot create kamma, i.e. moral or immoral actions which produce a reaction, in as much as with the complete cessation of craving there is no “cetanā” or worldly intention which could motivate his actions. The mind is completely freed from all that is temporal, earthly or gross. Of him it is said: “pāpañca puññañca ubho saṅgaṃ upaccagā.” That is to say, he has transcended the attachments of both good and evil. It is not only evil that has to be transcended but even good. Further reference to this view will be made later.

Another result of the complete cessation of craving is the beautiful and perfect tranquility of mind that the arahant enjoys. Says the Dhammapada:

“Calm is the mind, calm is the speech, calm is the deed of him who, rightly understanding and perfectly placid, has gained liberation.” 

Complete freedom from grief and fear is another result of the cessation of craving. Grief and fear are states of mind which can arise only when there is craving. Says the Dhammapada:

“From craving springs grief. From craving springs fear. For him who is freed from craving, there is no grief. Whence fear?” 

The arahant is also supremely happy. An expression used to describe them is “pītibhakkā” i.e. feeders on joy. How the arahants refer to their own happiness is expressed in the Dhammapada:

“Ah! Happily do we live without craving among those who crave. Among the men who crave we live without craving.” 

The arahant’s freedom from craving and his consequent domination of his senses is so complete, that he can look at all beings, all things, all conditions, unaffected and unmoved. He is not attached to anything. He is not repelled by anything. Perfect equanimity reigns supreme in his mind.

Not only is he unmoved by all contacts and sensations, he has also within him—paradoxical though it may seem—the ability to consider pleasant sensations as unpleasant, and unpleasant sensations as pleasant, or view them all with complete indifference. This is because he has transcended the sense-level. In the Dīgha Nikāya the Buddha makes pointed reference to this twofold ability by using the following two expressions: “appaṭikkule paṭikkūlasaññī” seeing the pleasant in the unpleasant and “paṭikkule appaṭikkūlasaññī” seeing the unpleasant in the pleasant. This ability to control the sense data comes only to those who have completely renounced craving.

When the Buddha, meditating under the Bodhi tree at Gaya in the last watch of that memorable night reached this glorious and blessed state of the cessation of all craving, and realized that it was craving that motivated Life, in triumphant joy he uttered a beautiful stanza containing a very exquisite and vivid allegory. It is one of the best allegories in all the world’s literature. It is in the form of an imaginary address to craving, whom he regards as a housebuilder, the builder of the House of Existence:

“Anekajāti saṃsaraṃ, sandhāvisaṃ anibbisaṃ 

Through many a birth in Saṃsāra have I, without success, wandered, 

Gahakārakaṃ gavesanto 

Searching for the builder of this house. 

Dukkhā jāti punappunaṃ 

Painful indeed is repeated birth. 

Gahakāraka diṭṭhosi 

Now, O House builder, thou art discovered. 

Puna gehaṃ nakāhasī 

Never shalt thou build again for me. 

Sabbā te phāsukā bhaggā

Broken are all thy rafters. 

Gahakūṭaṃ visaṅkhitaṃ 

Thy ridge pole is shattered, 

Visaṅkhāragataṃ cittaṃ 

My mind has attained to the unconditioned. 

Taṇhānaṃ khayamajjhagā 

Achieved is the cessation of craving”

How exactly the cessation of craving brings about the cessation of dukkha, and how exactly existence can come to an end, can only be understood by a close study of the doctrine of Dependent Origination known as the paṭicca samuppāda. Suffice it for the present to follow a simile used by the Buddha in the Majjhima Nikāya. “Suppose, monks, the light of an oil lamp is burning, generated by oil and wick, but no one from time to time pours oil or attends to the wick. Then, monks, according as the fuel is used up and no new fuel is added, the lamp for want of nourishment, will become extinct. Even so, monks, in him who contemplates the transitoriness of existence, craving ceases. Through the cessation of craving, grasping ceases. Through the cessation of grasping, becoming ceases. Through the cessation of becoming, rebirth ceases. Through the cessation of rebirth, old age, sickness, death, pain, lamentation, suffering, sorrow and despair cease. Such is the cessation of the whole chain of dukkha.

We can appreciate this phenomenon if we picture the sight of a creeper that is entwined round a tree, a creeper that is just uprooted. The creeper has been spreading from branch to branch. The tender tendrils of this creeper will no more reach out to contact any further branch so as to cling to it and grasp it and help it to continue its existence. The process of clinging and grasping having ceased, the creeper will just cease to grow, will gradually wither away and perish never to regain life any more. The roots of the creeper have dried up, because they now lack the nutriment of the soil, which is necessary to sustain the creeper.

So it is with human life, which is also a process of living by clinging and grasping and willing to live. A thought tends to reproduce itself. It is by reason of this reproductive power of thought, that the will to live makes man re-live, or as Dahlke put it “we live eternally through our lust to live.” Clinging to life makes life cling to us. The Pali word to express this clinging and grasping is upādāna. Like the physical creeper, the creeper of human life needs nutriment to sustain it. Craving is this nutriment. Craving is that which causes upādāna or grasping and thus helps to maintain the onward movement of the creeper of human life. By grasping is meant not grasping by the hand only. The Pali word upādāna refers to six kinds of Grasping, which correspond to the six senses. Thus there is grasping by the eye of sights; there is grasping by the ear of sounds, there is grasping by the nose of smells, there is grasping by the tongue of tastes. There is grasping by the body of tangible things. In Buddhist psychology there are six senses, not five. Therefore, sixthly, there is grasping by the mind of thought-impressions and ideas. These acts of grasping are mental energies or forces set in motion. Energy is indestructible. No energy therefore is ever lost.

So the mental energies released by these graspings, combined with the residual karmic energy at the moment of death, make for the continuity of life in any appropriate sphere or plane, when it ends here. Along with the parental sperm and ovum they condition the foundations for the arising of another life. Contact of seed with soil is not sufficient to engender plant life. There must be a third element—the outside element of light and air. Similarly, the outside elements, where the engendering of human life is concerned, are these energies released by craving, and distance is no bar to the operation of these energies. In the degree therefore in which you reduce craving, fewer and fewer things will be grasped by you, fewer and fewer sense objects will attract you. As craving continues to decrease, Grasping becomes weaker and weaker and like the tendrils of the uprooted creeper, will gradually lose their strength and power to grasp, until finally the whole creeper fades away. When craving completely ceases, the power to grasp also completely ceases; the creeper of human existence then will lie dried up at its root. Indeed, at the moment of death, it is only such a one as an arahant, who has completely shed every trace of craving and grasping, who can triumphantly exclaim:

“Oh Life! to thee I no more cling 

Oh Death! where is thy sting?” 

The question is always asked “What happens after death to the arahant who has destroyed all craving? Does he exist or does he not exist? If he does exist, where does he exist? If he does not exist, how can you speak of the bliss of Nibbāna which he is said to be enjoying after death?” All these questions appertain to the nature and condition of Nibbāna. In the questioner’s question lies an assumption that he is capable of understanding Nibbāna. But Nibbāna is said to be atakkāvacara, which means “cannot be reached by logic and reason.” Reason is not the highest faculty of man. Reason has its limitations. Nibbāna and like matters are realized not through reason, but through a higher faculty called paññā, lying dormant in us, but which we all can arouse and develop by means of meditation. With the arising of this intuitive or supernormal or supra-mundane knowledge, this highest wisdom, one is able to sense the Truth as naturally and easily as one would sense cold or heat. It is so different from that arduous process of reasoning at the end of which also one is still in doubt whether one has realized the whole Truth or not. Where this higher faculty is concerned there is no effort to comprehend.

The understanding just dawns on one. Some prefer to call it revelation, others call it intuition, yet others call it a latent sixth sense, but whatever name is given to it, whatever label is appended to it, it is a source of understanding that works independently of the senses and the reasoning faculty. It is a transcendental faculty lying dormant in us. The finite can never grasp the Infinite, but by meditation we can transcend the finite. Nibbāna is reality itself. It is the Infinite. It is the Absolute, and the Absolute cannot be explained in terms of the relative. As some one has aptly remarked, reason cannot be more reasonable than ceasing to reason on things beyond reason.

This very question as to what happens to an arahant after his death was put to the Buddha by one Upasiva as mentioned in the Sutta Nipāta and the Buddha’s answer was as follows:

 “Of one who’s passed away there is no measure 

Of him, there is naught, where by one may say aught. 

When once all things have wholly been removed, 

All ways of saying too have removed.” 

And elsewhere he has said, “Ākāse’va sakuntānaṃ padaṃ tassa dūrannayaṃ. The path of the arahant after death cannot be traced, it is like the path of birds in air.”

All that which the limited faculty of reason can suggest is that the existence of Nibbāna appears to be logically sound and that it appears to be a cosmic necessity. Everything is seen to exist in pairs of opposites. If there is hot, there is cold. If there is small, there is large. Hence if there is the finite, there must be the infinite. If there is the relative, there must be the absolute. If there is that which is born, that which is become, that which is made, that which is compounded, there must also be the opposite of it. And it is to this opposite that the Buddha referred when he was speaking of Nibbāna. In the Udāna he has said: “There is, O Monks, a notborn, a not-become, a not-made, a not-compounded.” Beyond such considerations, logic and reason cannot carry us any further in our attempt to understand Nibbāna, precisely because it is something beyond the scope of logic and reason. It must be left to the intuitive or supramundane faculty of paññā to help us to understand Nibbāna. This faculty is latent in us but it has to be aroused and developed by meditation. We can then understand Nibbāna not as a theoretical exposition but with the flavour of immediate experience. As Radhakrishnan has said:

Then great truths of philosophy are not proved but seen … In moving from intellect to intuition, we are not moving in the direction of unreason but are getting into the deepest rationality of which human nature is capable. In it … we see more truly and not simply measure things by the fragmentary standards of intellect.

From The Significance of the Four Noble Truths by V. F. Gunaratna