The Psychology of Nirvana

The book develops its argument through a sequence of analytical chapters. It first establishes its method and general background by treating nibbāna through early Pāli terminology and psychological interpretation rather than through later speculative systems. It then examines preliminary linguistic and doctrinal observations before turning to the core psychological dimensions of nibbāna: cognitive functions, emotion and feeling, dynamic motivation, personality transformation, emptiness, cessation of rebirth, transcendence, and the famous Udāna passage on the “unborn” and “unconditioned.” The later chapters study the relation between nibbāna and death, the personality factors connected with liberation, the ways leading to nibbāna, the question of consciousness, and the psychological profile of the arahant. The work concludes by presenting nibbāna as neither simple annihilation nor ordinary continued existence, but as a transformed condition marked by freedom from craving, ignorance, affective disturbance, and the processes that sustain rebirth.