nibbāna
The unconditioned, liberation
[ nib-BA-na ]
literally: blowing out
Seeing it in life
Nibbāna is the fourth paramattha: unconditioned, unborn, beyond saṃsāra. It is the object of the supramundane path and fruition cittas and is twofold: with residue (sa-upādisesa) and without residue (anupādisesa).
In short
The deathless — cessation of greed, hatred, delusion.
The analysis
The fourth paramattha, and the only one unconditioned — not arising, not passing, not built from causes the way citta, cetasika, and rūpa are. 'Blowing out' is the literal sense: the extinguishing of greed, hatred, and delusion, not an event in a place but the cessation of what had been burning. Twofold: with residue (an arahant still alive) and without residue (at death). The only paramattha that can be an object of consciousness without itself being conscious.
Where it sits
The fourth noble truth points toward nibbāna as cessation; the path (magga) is what leads there. Every other term in this dictionary describes conditioned process — arising, passing, conditioning something else. Nibbāna is the horizon those processes point toward, not a state reachable by technique applied within them.
Worth naming plainly what this entry is not: a wellness outcome, a calm mood, a good week. Modern usage borrows the word for temporary relief — 'that walk was nirvana' — which conflates something the tradition treats as categorically distinct from any conditioned pleasant state, however refined.
Commonly mistaken for
A blissful experience or peak state. Even the most refined jhāna is still conditioned, arising and passing — nibbāna is defined by not being that kind of thing.
Annihilation or nonexistence. The texts resist both 'the self continues' and 'the self is destroyed,' since both presuppose a self that either persists or ends.
Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha VI, IX; Udāna 8.1-4.
Related terms