Jonathan Gress said:
Iconodule said:
Perhaps St. Nikolai is connecting nirvana to apatheia (another pagan concept incorporated in Orthodox spirituality.)
That would certainly make sense. But is that all there is to nirvana? I thought nirvana implied something more, such as a kind of abrogation of the will to exist, which I think is a strange and foreign concept to Orthodoxy.
Buddhists distinguish "craving" (tanha) from "desire" (chanda). Craving is what leads to suffering. The craving for existence and the craving for non-existence both lead to suffering.
However, the desire to exist, and to do what needs to be done in order to create the greatest happiness for oneself and others, is necessary in order for nirvana (the end of suffering, and, thus, the "highest happiness") to be realized. Nirvana is impossible without the exercise of the will, the desire, in a positive direction, rather than in a craving direction.
What is remarkable about St. Nikolai is that, unlike many other Europeans at the time, it seems that he realized that nirvana was not a mere extinction, a mere going out of existence, that the Buddha did not often speak about exactly what nirvana was, because the Buddha was taking an apophatic approach, since words could never describe nirvana in any event.