Nirvana Day Service

Koloa Jodo Mission will observe a Nirvana Day Service on Sunday, February 23, 2014 at 10:30 a.m.  

What is Nirvana Day?

Nirvana Day is the day to commemorate the Passing (Death) of Gautama Buddha under the Shala Tree at Kushinagar in India. In China and Japan, it is usually observed in (or around) February 15, while other Asian countries celebrated this day as Vesak Day which is also a day of Gautama's birthday and a day of enlightenment (Bodhi Day).

The word, "Nirvana" is a Sanskrit word, meaning "Extinction." It is also called "Nibbāna" in Pali,"Nípphaan" in Thai, and "Nehan（涅槃）" in Japanese.

Originally, "nirvana" is a state of enlightenment attained by Gautama Buddha and accordingly it means the state which can be reached by extinguishing all illusions and destroying all karman, which is the cause of rebirth.

In the Sarvastivada School, it is called extinction obtained by knowledge (pratisamkhyata) and is said to be good in nature and eternal.   According to Mahayana, it denotes non-production (Fusho), and non-destruction(fumetsu), and is equated with wisdom (prajna) and the dahama-kaya. It has the four essential qualities of eternity, happiness, substantiality, and pureness. Therefore, nirvana, which originally meant extinction or annihilation, came to signify the dharama-kaya of the tathagata which is real and unchanging.

Nirvana is considered to be the same with Satori /Bodhi. But since it literally means "blown out," it should be the state that all the illusions and desires are gone. Thus it came to mean the physical death of Gautama Buddha because the death caused him completely free from his pain of physical body.

Nirvana Day is also called "Pari-nirvana Day" indicating the death of his physical body, in order to avoid the misundersatnding of the word "Nirvana."

Links

Parinirvana Day...from Wikipedia

Parinirvana....from BBC -Religions

Nirvana....from Wikipedia