The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana c8.8

c8.8

We will better understand the solution at which Buddha arrived, if we take into account a specific Indian habit of mind, its idea of quiescence as the only real bliss which life can afford. The Buddhist saint (ārya) regards the life of the worldling as an unhappy existence of constant turmoil. His aim is to escape from the movement of phenomenal life into a state of absolute quiescence, a condition in which all emotion and all concrete thought is stopped for ever. The means of attaining this quiescence is profound meditation (yoga), the technique of which was developed in India at a very early date.