An Arhat Entering Nirvāṇa Without Remainder Means the Body Reduced to Ashes and Wisdom Extinguished, Not All Thoughts Turned to Ashes in Despair

After an arhat enters nirvāṇa without remainder, his world of the three realms disappears. The world of the three realms—including the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm—is called the vessel world (bhājana-loka), and it contains an immense amount of material form. If an arhat enters nirvāṇa without remainder, not only do the forms of the image-Only Object, the real object, and the Image-Only Object corresponding to the seven consciousnesses no longer arise, but even the essential-object forms corresponding to his eighth consciousness no longer arise. Without the essential object, there is no Image-Only Object, no dependent object, and no real object. These realms are the circumstantial retribution dharmas of the world manifested by the karmic seeds of the three realms, while the direct retribution is the body of the five aggregates.

It is ordinary worldly people who become utterly disheartened and despairing; noble ones are without such thoughts, so there is no question of despairing. An arhat cannot become utterly disheartened the way worldly people do. The meaning of being utterly disheartened is that one has many hopes and wishes in mind that cannot be realized, and so one becomes greatly disappointed, ending up without any thoughts or ideas left in the world; yet the manas still has many thoughts and wishes that have not ceased—they simply cannot be realized.

The Buddha used the phrase "extinguishing the body and obliterating wisdom" to describe the arhat's folly. "Extinguishing the body" means extinguishing the present physical body of the five aggregates as well as the bodies of the five aggregates of countless kalpas in future lives, abandoning them altogether; "obliterating wisdom" means obliterating the wisdom of liberation from the three realms. The meaning is that the arhat abandons both body and mind, and this is called liberation, called tranquility.

In fact, what is true liberation? It is that when facing all states and conditions, one is as if there were no states at all—without desire or seeking, seeing yet as if not seeing, hearing yet as if not hearing, applying the mind to nothing, neither actively pursuing nor avoiding, not being influenced nor becoming tainted, utterly at ease. The Buddha is precisely thus free and liberated: it does not prevent Him from having a liberated form of the five aggregates, nor from having the seven consciousnesses transformed into wisdom; body and wisdom both present, accompanying each other without separation, and no heavenly māra or non-Buddhist path can do anything about it. This is the Buddha's realm of non-abiding nirvāṇa (apratiṣṭhita-nirvāṇa), abiding in no dharma whatsoever—unconditioned like the undefiled consciousness (amala-vijñāna), unconditioned like suchness itself, yet this does not obstruct the conditioned: like the great perfect mirror wisdom (ādarśajñāna), it is active yet unconditioned, the conditioned and the unconditioned fused into one seamless whole, never apart. This realm is incomparable; the realm of sentient beings cannot be compared with the Buddha's realm.