The following comment is from y not:
Going with what the Buddha says:
Sansara has no (traceable) beginning; but also, avijja too has no (traceable) beginning: “A first beginning of ignorance cannot be conceived, (of which it can be said), ‘Before that, there was no ignorance and it came to be after”. So there can be no question as to the cause of its arising.
The Path eliminates the defilements. If there were no Nibbana, it would lead to a suffering -free state, which would equate
with a neutral state only. In the mundane sense, the elimination of suffering in itself and by itself does not constitute happiness. It only leads to it. But in the case of Nibbana, since Nibbana is there already, the Pure Mind ( covered with raga, dvesha and moha), thus freed, automatically attains Nibbana, becomes Nibbana, ‘becomes’ what it intrinsically is.
Compare: Someone is in pain, in time recovers from pain, and later enjoys a favourite activity, physical or mental. The first is suffering, the second relief and the third happiness. Here, recovery from pain is not the happiness, but is essential for happiness to follow. There can be no happiness where there is pain. With Nibbana, the attainment of happiness goes hand-in -hand with the elimination of suffering – there is no need to go in search of anything, for Nibbana is the Pure Mind itself shorn of defilements.
Pathfinder: The pure mind never became defiled. I has always been defiled. And there can be no going back ‘to getting defiled’
after Nibbana. Will anyone want to keep an item of food that made him sick in the fridge for later use?
