“There is an island, an island which you cannot go beyond. It is a place of nothingness, a place of non-possession and of non-attachment. It is the total end of death and decay, and this is why I call it Nibbana.”
Sutta Nipāta 1094
For many years I was put off by the metaphor of an island for Nibbana. It made me want to return to Catholicism! At least heaven had some appeal. What was the point of going through all the pains of the spiritual life only to end up all alone on an island, surrounded by nothingness?
More recently I have begun value the metaphor. For example, I find it a relief to know there is something I cannot go beyond. In the sutta it means there is nothing further: this is the end of the path. But I have come to value it as a description of my meditative boundaries. When I detect a boundary, there is a reflection, “Ah yes, beyond this I cannot go,” and gratitude that this boundary is protecting me from dukkha.
Take the boundary between right effort and over-effort, for example. With right effort, I sit straight, alert to whatever is drawing attention, curious about my experience. This brings an objective perspective which is fascinating and allows equanimity even in the presence of thoughts and feelings that would otherwise trigger reactivity. Thus I can register ‘unacceptable’ thoughts, e.g. of anger or prejudice, without judging these as wrong or myself as bad for having them. The process can feel very uncomfortable, unpleasant, but there is also a sense of healing: buried fears and shame are showing up and finding non-judgement, acceptance.
The notion of ‘nothingness’ can also find some traction here. The attitude of equanimity does indeed present an open space within the mind, a space where thinking stops and things lose definition. Usually the mind curls around pleasant sensations, claiming them as ‘me and mine’, and pushes unpleasant ones away as ‘other’. But a more spacious knowing sees both poles, and sees the tightening that this clinging produces in body and mind. When that is fully acknowledged, relaxation happens; pleasant and unpleasant settle into neutral feeling, and the distinction between them fades.
The Dhamma teacher Leigh Brasington suggests that ‘nothingness’ be understood as ‘no-thingness’: the mind no longer turning experience into things. When the mind stops making stories out of experience, there is no need even to name anything to distinguish it from anything else.
Although the mind has stopped thinking, it has not lost intelligence. A puzzling or difficult thought can be held in the silence of ‘no-thingness’, its implications sinking into flesh and bones. And when the mind is next inclined to think, it comes up with a wise response to that thought.
The potential for ever-deepening wisdom is enticing, and the desire to get answers to all my questions rears its head. But the moment right effort shades into over-effort, I sense a pinch of unwholesomeness. I know that I have unwittingly undermined myself: expecting too much of my understanding, I’ve slipped into disappointment at its limitations. Subtle as it is, this is a lapse in ahiṃsā, non-harming, turned towards myself.
Sensing this, I relax automatically. I realise that I cannot get any more answers, that I have come to the limit of my capability to understand myself and the world I live in, which is also the limit of my Dhamma understanding. Meditation now turns towards making peace with these limits, forgiving myself for overreaching.
At its most subtle, over-effort can be detected simply as unpleasant feeling, and effort relaxes the moment before it overshoots. This presents a tangible boundary, detectable even when the mind is soaring joyfully through the bliss of ‘no-thingness’. At these moments I appreciate unpleasant feeling and my natural wish to avoid it as a very effective boundary: preventing delusion and the suffering that results from identifying with meditative bliss.
I’m coming to see the island not as the lonely place I once feared. In fact there is no one set apart to be alone. The shoreline bounding it is compassion: feeling the pinch of grasping, the wise heart learns to let go of unskilful desire, and desire fades into nothingness.
