Learning about nirvana

Pop Buddhism seems, more than often, confused about nirvana.  It's a subject hardly taken up in a Dharma center.  One gets the impression that modern Buddhists are more interested in meditation than learning about nirvana.  

Not atypical for pop Buddhism, in Stephen Batchelor's book, Buddhism Without Beliefs, nirvana is all but ignored except two minor references.  Ironically, this particular book is heralded as a primer; as a work that has captured the essence of Buddhism.  This is rather odd since a general understanding of nirvana is pivotal, even for the curious, otherwise Buddhism makes no sense.  

Lacking a general understanding of nirvana, what pop Buddhism gives the general public is a procrustean treatment of Buddhism which serves the interests of Western materialism; not Buddhism.  What is chopped off in the modern Procrustean bed is nirvana and with it the transcendent which Buddhism aims at.

It is not an oversimplification to assert that 'nirvana' is all about the unconditioned.  This implies that nirvana is beyond the conditioned–it is transcendent.  In other words, nirvana is not something phenomenal that we can point to.  Nor is it something we can think about or make a mental image of.  In the commentarial works of the Pali canon it is said that "nirvana's own nature is that of being unconditioned.  For therein no trace, even, of conditioned dharmas is witnessed" (Udanatthakatha).

The unconditioned is the true substance and basis of all that is conditioned, i.e., the phenomenal world.  Yet it is free from the effects of conditioning.  When our conditioned body perishes, the unconditioned is not affected.  As an example, a clay pot is conditioned from clay, the unconditioned.  If the pot should break, the clay is not made less although the pot is no more. 

Thus, to realize nirvana is to see the unconditioned which is free of all conditionality and suffering. When our mind becomes, itself, pure and unconditioned, only then do we realize nirvana.  This is from The Questions of King Milinda which confirms what I have said.

Just so it is possible to point out the way to the realization of Nirvana, but impossible to show a cause for its production.  Could a man, who with his natural strength has crossed in a boat over the great ocean, get to the farther shore? – 'Yes, he could.' – But could that man with his natural strength bring the farther shore here? – 'No, he could not' – Just so one can point out the way to the realization of Nirvana, but one cannot show a cause for its production. And what is the reason for that?  Because that dharma, Nirvana, is unconditioned. – 'Is then, Nagesena, Nirvana unconditioned?' – So it is, O king, unconditioned is Nirvana, not made by anything.  Of Nirvana one cannot say that it is produced, or unproduced, or that should be produced; that it is past, or future, or present; or that one can become aware of it by the eye, or the ear, or the nose, or the tongue, or the body. – 'In that case, Nagasena, you indicate Nirvana as a dharma which is not, and Nirvana does not exist' – Nirvana is something which is.  It is cognizable by the mind.  A holy disciple, who has followed the right road, sees Nirvana with a mind which is pure, sublime, straight, unimpeded and disinterested" (Edward Conze, Buddhist Scriptures, 158-59). (Emphasis added.)

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