The trouble is, most people react to talk about Nibbãna by
feeling oddly dejected and dismayed. It doesn’t put them in a good
mood as does talk about worldly matters. Having no personal
experience of Nibbãna, they probably think that it’s not as enjoy-
able as the humdrum things they are accustomed to. Not only has
the present generation lost interest in Nibbãna – even our parents
and grandparents were not much interested, nor did they encour-
age others to take an interest. At most, they may have encouraged
their family to go to the local monastery from time to time to take
the precepts and hear Dhamma. Perhaps they sometimes encour-
aged their families to do meditation practice to calm them down
a bit and keep their behavior within acceptable limits. Of course,
one way or another they did manage to advise their family and
friends to do just about everything else, until fed up with hearing
their advice, most people no longer bothered to take it.
Undoubtedly, most people have already decided that Nibbãna
must be a very silent place, there being no music or entertainment
and no one to indulge them in their favorite pastimes. They proba-
bly see it as a place devoid of anything stimulating or exciting, and
therefore, they don’t want to go there. They fear dropping into a
still, silent hell without a soul in sight: There would be no family,
no friends, and no sounds, ever, of birds and cars, or laughter and
crying. It appears to be a rather bleak, undesirable place in every
way. So people who still harbor ambitions do not want to go to
Nibbãna. And even if they did, they would be unable to go, for
their ambitions would hold them back and make them hesitate.
People who can truly attain Nibbãna are those who have
absolutely no worldly ambitions or involvements. Being neither
passionate nor impassive, neither relaxed nor tense, but remain-
jacob rumans
(Jacob Rumans)
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