What is the bliss of Nirvāṇa?

When arising and ceasing cease, the cessation itself is bliss. The dharmas of arising and ceasing are the worldly dharmas of the five aggregates and eighteen realms, and all of these dharmas are subject to arising and ceasing. When sentient beings, through cultivation, eradicate the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi) and then eradicate self-grasping, they gain the ability to extinguish these illusory worldly dharmas of the five aggregates. After all these arising-and-ceasing dharmas have been extinguished, only the Dharmakāya tathāgatagarbha remains, and the tathāgatagarbha abides in a state of cessation. Since the tathāgatagarbha has no suffering feeling, it is expediently said to be bliss—this is called the bliss of cessation (nirodha).

The five aggregates are suffering dharmas; where there are five aggregates, there is suffering. The arhats only wish to extinguish suffering. After completing the practice of the Four Noble Truths and becoming beyond training (aśaikṣa), when their karmic connections with the world come to an end, they extinguish the five aggregates and the seven consciousnesses. Extinguishing the five aggregates is tantamount to extinguishing the feeling of suffering; with the suffering feeling extinguished, there is no more suffering. Yet although there is no suffering, there is also no worldly kind of bliss, because worldly bliss is itself suffering and is also impure. The bliss of nirvāṇa is different from worldly bliss: it is the tranquil, unconditioned bliss of cessation, not the noisy kind of worldly pleasure—it is simply difficult to express in worldly language.

This bliss of cessation is the tranquil bliss of the Dharmakāya tathāgatagarbha, free from suffering and free from clamor. In this bliss, there is no one who experiences the bliss; the Dharmakāya itself does not experience bliss, because He does not perceive sense objects. There is no five-aggregate body that experiences bliss, and no person who, not experiencing bliss, experiences suffering, because fundamentally no person exists. The Dharmakāya itself also does not experience suffering. In this state, there is no feeling of suffering or bliss, nor even a feeling that is neither suffering nor bliss—nothing but unconditioned tranquility throughout.