The word nirvana points to the state of a fire that has gone out. The Buddha often described our present world as a house on fire, and living beings as burning up with passions. To achieve the goal of Buddhist practice meant to "cool down" and put out these flames of suffering. However, later Buddhist thinkers such as the composers of a text called The Questions of King Milinda went further and compared living beings themselves to flames. we are not things or objects; we are self-perpetuating processes like fire. While such a teaching may help sort out some philosophical questions about the nature of the self, it leaves one crucial question dangling: If we are like flames, and if achieving nirvana means to put out the flame, then does anyone remain to be liberated after enlightenment?

Despite Buddhism's constant reassurances that the state of nirvana was one of peace, bliss, and the end of all suffering, a strong impression remained that the achievement of nirvana amounted to self-annihilation.

Mahayana Buddhists countered this by denying that nirvana equaled extinction. Instead, they claimed that buddhas achieved such great wisdom that they thoroughly understood the workings of reality and could control their own fates within it. Early Mahayana texts such as the Lotus Sūtra went out of their way to explain that buddhas do not just "blink out" of existence, nor do they abide beyond the reach of followers who need their help. Instead, they can manifest where needed to render assistance to those still suffering. Another Mahayana text, Nāgārjuna's Root Stanzas on the Middle Way (Mulamadhyamaka-kärikā), asserted that because of this, nirvana and samsara (the realms of rebirth and suffering) were coextensive. Thus, a buddha and an ordinary person could both be in the same place, but it would manifest to the buddha as nirvana, while for the ordinary being it remains samsara. The difference is not in the place, but in the mind.

Charles B. Jones • Pure Land