title: Buck converter

text: Finally, power losses occur as a result of the power required to turn the switches on and off. For MOSFET switches, these losses are dominated by the energy required to charge and discharge the capacitance of the MOSFET gate between the threshold voltage and the selected gate voltage. These switch transition losses occur primarily in the gate driver, and can be minimized by selecting MOSFETs with low gate charge, by driving the MOSFET gate to a lower voltage (at the cost of increased MOSFET conduction losses), or by operating at a lower frequency.


title: Buck converter

text: For N-MOSFETs, the high-side switch must be driven to a higher voltage than "V". To achieve this, MOSFET gate drivers typically feed the MOSFET output voltage back into the gate driver. The gate driver then adds its own supply voltage to the MOSFET output voltage when driving the high-side MOSFETs to achieve a "V" equal to the gate driver supply voltage. Because the low-side "V" is the gate driver supply voltage, this results in very similar "V" values for high-side and low-side MOSFETs.


title: Buck converter

text: A complete design for a buck converter includes a tradeoff analysis of the various power losses. Designers balance these losses according to the expected uses of the finished design. A converter expected to have a low switching frequency does not require switches with low gate transition losses; a converter operating at a high duty cycle requires a low-side switch with low conduction losses.


title: Buck converter

text: A synchronous buck converter is a modified version of the basic buck converter circuit topology in which the diode, D, is replaced by a second switch, S. This modification is a tradeoff between increased cost and improved efficiency.


title: Buck converter

text: In a standard buck converter, the flyback diode turns on, on its own, shortly after the switch turns off, as a result of the rising voltage across the diode. This voltage drop across the diode results in a power loss which is equal to


title: Buck converter

text: By replacing the diode with a switch selected for low loss, the converter efficiency can be improved. For example, a MOSFET with very low "R" might be selected for "S", providing power loss on switch which is


title: Buck converter

text: In both cases, power loss is strongly dependent on the duty cycle, D. Power loss on the freewheeling diode or lower switch will be proportional to its on-time. Therefore, systems designed for low duty cycle operation will suffer from higher losses in the freewheeling diode or lower switch, and for such systems it is advantageous to consider a synchronous buck converter design.


title: Buck converter

text: Consider a computer power supply, where the input is 5 V, the output is 3.3 V, and the load current is 10A. In this case, the duty cycle will be 66% and the diode would be on for 34% of the time. A typical diode with forward voltage of 0.7 V would suffer a power loss of 2.38 W. A well-selected MOSFET with R of 0.015 Ω, however, would waste only 0.51 W in conduction loss. This translates to improved efficiency and reduced heat generation.


title: Buck converter

text: Another advantage of the synchronous converter is that it is bi-directional, which lends itself to applications requiring regenerative braking. When power is transferred in the "reverse" direction, it acts much like a boost converter.


title: Buck converter

text: The advantages of the synchronous buck converter do not come without cost. First, the lower switch typically costs more than the freewheeling diode. Second, the complexity of the converter is vastly increased due to the need for a complementary-output switch driver.


title: Buck converter

text: Such a driver must prevent both switches from being turned on at the same time, a fault known as "shootthrough". The simplest technique for avoiding shootthrough is a time delay between the turn-off of S to the turn-on of S, and vice versa. However, setting this time delay long enough to ensure that S and S are never both on will itself result in excess power loss. An improved technique for preventing this condition is known as adaptive "non-overlap" protection, in which the voltage at the switch node (the point where S, S and L are joined) is sensed to determine its state. When the switch node voltage passes a preset threshold, the time delay is started. The driver can thus adjust to many types of switches without the excessive power loss this flexibility would cause with a fixed non-overlap time.


title: Buck converter

text: Both low side and high side switches may be turned off in response to a load transient and the body diode in the low side MOSFET or another diode in parallel with it becomes active. The higher voltage drop on the low side switch is then of benefit, helping to reduce current output and meet the new load requirement sooner.


title: Buck converter

text: The multiphase buck converter is a circuit topology where basic buck converter circuits are placed in parallel between the input and load. Each of the "n" "phases" is turned on at equally spaced intervals over the switching period. This circuit is typically used with the synchronous buck topology, described above.


title: Buck converter

text: This type of converter can respond to load changes as quickly as if it switched "n" times faster, without the increase in switching losses that would cause. Thus, it can respond to rapidly changing loads, such as modern microprocessors.


title: Buck converter

text: There is also a significant decrease in switching ripple. Not only is there the decrease due to the increased effective frequency, but any time that "n" times the duty cycle is an integer, the switching ripple goes to 0; the rate at which the inductor current is increasing in the phases which are switched on exactly matches the rate at which it is decreasing in the phases which are switched off.


title: Buck converter

text: Another advantage is that the load current is split among the "n" phases of the multiphase converter. This load splitting allows the heat losses on each of the switches to be spread across a larger area.


title: Buck converter

text: This circuit topology is used in computer motherboards to convert the 12 V power supply to a lower voltage (around 1 V), suitable for the CPU. Modern CPU power requirements can exceed 200W, can change very rapidly, and have very tight ripple requirements, less than 10mV. Typical CPU power supplies found on mainstream motherboards use 3 or 4 phases, while high-end systems can have 16 or more phases.


title: Buck converter

text: One major challenge inherent in the multiphase converter is ensuring the load current is balanced evenly across the "n" phases. This current balancing can be performed in a number of ways. Current can be measured "losslessly" by sensing the voltage across the inductor or the lower switch (when it is turned on). This technique is considered lossless because it relies on resistive losses inherent in the buck converter topology. Another technique is to insert a small resistor in the circuit and measure the voltage across it. This approach is more accurate and adjustable, but incurs several costs—space, efficiency and money.


title: Buck converter

text: Finally, the current can be measured at the input. Voltage can be measured losslessly, across the upper switch, or using a power resistor, to approximate the current being drawn. This approach is technically more challenging, since switching noise cannot be easily filtered out. However, it is less expensive than having a sense resistor for each phase.


title: Buck converter

text: Conduction losses happen when current is flowing through the components and thus depend on the load. They are caused by Joule effect in the resistance when the transistor or MOSFET switch is conducting, the inductor winding resistance, and the capacitor equivalent series resistance. Losses are proportional to the square of the current in this case. Conduction losses are also generated by the diode forward voltage drop (usually or for schottky diode), and are proportional to the current in this case.


title: Buck converter

text: Switching losses happen in the transistor and diode when the voltage and the current overlap during the transitions between closed and open states. A schottky diode can be used to minimize the switching losses caused by the reverse recovery of a regular PN diode. The switching losses are proportionnal to the switching frequency.


title: Buck converter

text: In a complete real-world buck converter, there is also a command circuit to regulate the output voltage or the inductor current. This circuit and the MOSFET gate controller have a power consumption, impacting the overall efficiency of the converter.


title: Buck converter

text: A buck converter can be used to maximize the power transfer through the use of impedance matching. An application of this is in a "maximum power point tracker" commonly used in photovoltaic systems.


title: Buck converter

text: This shows that it is possible to adjust the impedance ratio by adjusting the duty cycle. This is particularly useful in applications where the impedances are dynamically changing.


title: Maureen Reagan

text: Maureen Elizabeth Reagan (January 4, 1941 – August 8, 2001) was an American political activist and the first child of U.S. president Ronald Reagan and his first wife, actress Jane Wyman. Her brother is Michael Reagan and her half-siblings are Patti Davis and Ron Reagan, from her father's second marriage (to Nancy Reagan).


title: Maureen Reagan

text: Reagan was born January 4, 1941, in Los Angeles, where she was raised. She graduated from Marymount Secondary School, Tarrytown, New York in 1958 and briefly attended Marymount University in Virginia. She worked for Walker & Dunlop and entered the Miss Washington competition in 1959.


title: Maureen Reagan

text: Reagan pursued a career in acting in her youth, appearing in films such as "Kissin' Cousins" (1964) in which she featured alongside Elvis Presley.


title: Maureen Reagan

text: Reagan was the first son or daughter of a President to be elected cochair of the Republican National Committee. However, both of her attempts at election to political office ended in defeat. She ran unsuccessfully for the United States Senate from California in 1982 (which was eventually won by Pete Wilson) and in 1992 for California's 36th congressional district.


title: Maureen Reagan

text: Although they maintained a united front, Maureen Reagan differed from her father on several key issues. Although reared Roman Catholic following her mother's conversion, she was pro-choice on abortion. She also held the belief that Oliver North should have been court-martialed.


title: Maureen Reagan

text: After her father announced his diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease in 1994, Maureen Reagan became a member of the Alzheimer's Association board of directors and served as the group's spokeswoman. While hospitalized for melanoma cancer towards the end of her life, Maureen was only floors away from her father who had suffered a severe fall.


title: Maureen Reagan

text: In 1960, Maureen's by-then divorced parents became concerned about her. Ronald Reagan used his connections at the FBI − established during his work as an anti-communist informant − to request the agency to investigate her romantic life. The agency did so on condition that the FBI not be cited as a source, and reported that she was living with an older, married man who was a police officer.


title: Maureen Reagan

text: Reagan died in Granite Bay, California, on August 8, 2001, aged 60, from melanoma. She is interred at Calvary Catholic Cemetery and Mausoleum in Sacramento, California.


title: Maureen Reagan

text: Reagan volunteered with actor David Hyde Pierce, of TV's "Frasier", at the Alzheimer's Association. At her funeral on August 19, 2001, Pierce spoke to the mourners at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Sacramento, and recalled his friend's attitude to her illness. "When she was given lemons, she did not make lemonade. She took the lemons, threw them back and said, 'Oh, no you don't.'"


title: Sureños

text: Sureños (; Spanish: "Southerners"), Southern United Raza, Sur 13 or Sureños X3 are groups of loosely affiliated gangs that pay tribute to the Mexican Mafia while in U.S. state and federal correctional facilities. Many Sureño gangs have rivalries with one another, and the only time this rivalry is set aside is when they enter the prison system. Thus, fighting is common among different Sureño gangs even though they share the same common identity. Sureños have emerged as a national gang in the United States.


title: Sureños

text: The Sureños main stronghold is in southern California. They have a heavy presence in California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico and Utah. They have a smaller presence in Illinois, Oklahoma, Georgia, Oregon and Washington. They have spread as far east as New York. Sureños have been documented in the U.S. military, found in both U.S. and overseas bases. They also can be found in some parts of Mexico. Sureños also maintain relationships with various drug trafficking organizations based in Mexico. They have been confirmed in 35 different states in the U.S. They are with the Gulf Cartel.


title: Sureños

text: The statewide north-south dividing line between Norteños and Sureños has roughly been accepted as the cities of Bakersfield and Delano. Sureños' strongholds in Upstate California are usually in Santa Rosa and Modesto due to a high Mexican-American population in those cities. Sureños in Los Angeles refer to their members in Central California as "Central Sureños" and Sureños refer to their members in northern California as "Upstate Sureños".


title: Sureños

text: The term "Sureño" means "Southerner" in Spanish. Even though Sureños were established in 1968, the term was not used until the 1970s as a result of the continued conflict between the Mexican Mafia and Nuestra Familia in California's prison system. As a result of these prison wars, all Hispanic California street gangs align themselves with the Sureño or Norteño movements—with very few exceptions, such as the Fresno Bulldogs and the Maravilla gangs of East Los Angeles, California. When a Sureño is asked what being a Sureño means, members answer, "A Sureño is a foot soldier for the Mexican Mafia."


title: Sureños

text: In 2009, members of the Sureños were charged in the deaths of rival Norteño gang members Alvaro Garcia-Pena and Intiaz Ahmed, who were killed at Alvarado's Bar & Grill in Richmond, California. One member of the Sureños pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Other members from the Sureños gang received other sentences for their involvement in the shooting.


title: Sureños

text: In 2010, 51 Sureños were arrested in a California narcotics sting. The investigation identified eight Sureño gangs involved in various criminal activities, including the distribution of narcotics. The investigation also resulted in the seizure of more than 19 pounds of methamphetamine, a methamphetamine conversion laboratory, 1.5 kilograms of cocaine, small amounts of crack cocaine, 25 pounds of marijuana, 35 firearms, and $800,000 in currency and property. The charges against the gang members were conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana, street terrorism and firearms violations.


title: Sureños

text: While "sur" is the Spanish word for south, among Sureños "SUR" also stands for Southern United Raza. Sureños use the number 13—which represents the thirteenth letter of the alphabet, the letter M—in order to mark their allegiance to the Mexican Mafia. Common Sureño gang markings and tattoos include, but are not limited to: Sur, XIII, X3, 13, Sur13, uno tres, trece and 3-dots. Although there are many tattoos used by Sureños, there is only one tattoo that proves or validates membership. The X3 tag can also be commonly spotted in graffiti. The word "Sureño" or "Sureña" must be earned. Most Sureños are of Mexican descent, but some Sureño gangs allow members from various other ethnic backgrounds to join their ranks, making Sureños multiethnic. They also favor blue or grey sport clothing, such as Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Rams and sometimes Los Angeles Lakers. Upstate Sureños, however, wear Dallas Cowboys, San Jose Sharks and Oakland Raiders clothing.


title: Sureños

text: Sureño groups are involved in many aspects of criminal activity including homicides, drug trafficking, kidnapping, and assaults. They are also heavily engaged in human trafficking. There have been many high-profile criminal cases involving Sureños in a variety of states. Their primary focus is the distribution of various forms of narcotics and carrying out orders handed by the Mexican Mafia. Police departments have a difficult time dealing with this gang because of its decentralized hierarchy at the street level. Law enforcement attempts to limit the influence of the Mexican Mafia over the various Sureño street gangs have been met with little success. By the late 1990s, a federal task force was set up in order to investigate the gang's involvement in the illegal drug trade; this resulted in the arrest of several of its members. The authorities confiscated thousands of dollars in drugs and money, as reported by the "Los Angeles Times" and local news channels. The group has historically quarreled with various rival gangs for placement and competition, which has resulted in many drive-by shootings and deaths. On August 24, 2004, a law enforcement preliminary injunction terminated the active members of the 38th Street gang, out of the streets, banning them from using firearms, alcohol, graffiti and other dangerous materials in public.


title: Sureños

text: Sureños have a stronghold in San Francisco's Mission District, who feud with fellow Sureño factions and Nortenos. Surenos have had a history of beefing with other Sureño individuals, whether it be gang in-fighting, or different Sureno cliques fighting each other. For instance, two rival Sureño gangs fighting over territorial grounds of Southwest Community Park in Santa Rosa, California, lead to the shooting death of an 18-year-old man in 2008. The neighborhood South Park is home to a portion of the city’s Angelo Heights Sureños, named after the Angelino Heights neighborhood in Los Angeles in which its original members came from. Sureños also have had territorial fighting in San Jose and Oakland.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Nirvana (Sanskrit: निर्वाण, '; Pali: ') is "blowing out" or "quenching" of the activities of the worldly mind and its related suffering. Nirvana is the goal of the Hinayana and Theravada Buddhist paths, and marks the soteriological release from worldly suffering and rebirths in "saṃsāra". Nirvana is part of the Third Truth on "cessation of "dukkha"" in the Four Noble Truths, and the ""summum bonum" of Buddhism and goal of the Eightfold Path."


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: In the Buddhist tradition, nirvana has commonly been interpreted as the extinction of the "three fires", or "three poisons", greed ("raga"), aversion ("dvesha") and ignorance ("moha"). When these "fires" are extinguished, release from the cycle of rebirth ("saṃsāra") is attained.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Nirvana has also been claimed by some scholars to be identical with "anatta" (non-self) and "sunyata" (emptiness) states though this is hotly contested by other scholars and practicing monks. In time, with the development of the Buddhist doctrine, other interpretations were given, such as the absence of the weaving ("vana") of activity of the mind, the elimination of desire, and escape from the woods, cq. the five "skandhas" or aggregates.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Buddhist Theravada scholastic tradition identifies two types of nirvana: "sopadhishesa-nirvana" literally "nirvana with a remainder", attained and maintained during life, and "parinirvana" or "anupadhishesa-nirvana", meaning "nirvana without remainder" or final nirvana, achieved on death, a death which is not followed by a rebirth or reincarnation in (according to Buddhist beliefs) the usual way. The founder of Buddhism, the Buddha, is believed to have reached both these states, the first at his Enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree, and the latter at his death many years later. Most Mahayana authorities have broadly similar ideas, but prefer the terms "abiding" and "non-abiding nirvana" for the two stages.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: "Nirvana", or the liberation from cycles of rebirth, is the highest aim of the Theravada tradition. In the Mahayana tradition, the highest goal is "Buddhahood", in which there is no abiding in nirvana. Buddha helps liberate beings from "saṃsāra" by teaching the Buddhist path. There is no rebirth for Buddha or people who attain nirvana. But his teachings remain in the world for a certain time as a guidance to attain nirvana.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: The origin of the term "nirvana" is probably pre-Buddhist. It was a more or less central concept among the Jains, the Ajivikas, the Buddhists, and certain Hindu traditions.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: It generally describes a state of freedom from suffering and rebirth. The ideas of spiritual liberation using different terminology, is found in ancient texts of non-Buddhist Indian traditions, such as in verse 4.4.6 of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad of Hinduism.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: The term may have been imported into Buddhism with much of its semantic range from these other sramanic movements. However its etymology may not be conclusive for its meaning. Different Buddhist traditions have interpreted the concept in different ways, and the term has had a range of meanings over time.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: One literal interpretation translates "nir√vā" as "blow out", interpreting "nir" is a negative, and "va" as "to blow"., giving a meaning of "blowing out" or "quenching". It is seen to refer to both to the act and the effect of blowing (at something) to put it out, but also the process and outcome of burning out, becoming extinguished.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: The term "nirvana" in the soteriological sense of "blown out, extinguished" state of liberation does not appear in the Vedas nor in the pre-Buddhist Upanishads. According to Collins, "the Buddhists seem to have been the first to call it "nirvana"."


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: The term "nirvana" then became part of an extensive metaphorical structure that was probably established at a very early age in Buddhism. According to Gombrich, the number of three fires alludes to the three fires which a Brahmin had to keep alight, and thereby symbolise life in the world, as a family-man. The meaning of this metaphor was lost in later Buddhism, and other explanations of the word "nirvana" were sought. Not only passion, hatred and delusion were to be extinguished, but also all cankers ("asava") or defilements ("khlesa"). Later exegetical works developed a whole new set of folk etymological definitions of the word nirvana, using the root "vana" to refer to "to blow", but re-parsing the word to roots that mean "weaving, sewing", "desire" and "forest or woods":


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: The term "nirvana", "to blow out", has also been interpreted as the extinction of the "three fires", or "three poisons", namely of passion or sensuality ("raga"), aversion or hate ("dvesha") and of delusion or ignorance ("moha" or "avidyā").


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: The "blowing out" does not mean total annihilation, but the extinguishing of a flame. The term "nirvana" can also be used as a verb: "he or she nirvāṇa-s," or "he or she parinirvānṇa-s" ("parinibbāyati").


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu argues that the term nibbāna was apparently derived etymologically from the negative prefix, nir, plus the root vāṇa, or binding: unbinding, and that the associated adjective is nibbuta: unbound, and the associated verb, nibbuti: to unbind. He and others use the term unbinding for nibbana. (Ṭhānissaro argues that the early Buddhist association of 'blowing out' with the term arose in light of the way in which the processes of fire were viewed at that time - that a burning fire was seen as clinging to its fuel in a state of hot agitation, and that when going out the fire let go of its fuel and reached a state of freedom, cooling, and peace.)


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Matsumoto Shirō (1950-), of the Critical Buddhism group, stated that the original etymological root of "nirvana" should be considered not as nir√vā, but as nir√vŗ, to "uncover". According to Matsumoto, the original meaning of "nirvana" was therefore not "to extinguish" but "to uncover" the "atman" from that which is "anatman" (not atman). Swanson stated that some Buddhism scholars questioned whether 'blowing out' and 'extinction' etymologies are consistent with the core doctrines of Buddhism, particularly about "anatman" (non-self) and "pratityasamutpada" (causality). They saw a problem that considering nirvana as extinction or liberation presupposes a "self" to be extinguished or liberated. However other Buddhist scholars, such as Takasaki Jikidō, disagreed and called the Matsumoto proposal "too far and leaving nothing that can be called Buddhist".


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: "Nirvana" is used synonymously with "moksha" (Sanskrit), also "vimoksha", or "vimutti" (Pali), "release, deliverance from suffering". In the Pali-canon two kinds of vimutti are discerned:


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Ceto-vimutti becomes permanent, only with the attainment of pañña-vimutti. According to Gombrich and other scholars, these may be a later development within the canon, reflecting a growing emphasis in earliest Buddhism on "prajña", instead of the liberating practice of "dhyana"; it may also reflect a successful assimilation of non-Buddhist meditation practices in ancient India into the Buddhist canon. According to Anālayo, the term "uttari"-"vimutti" (highest liberation) is also widely used in the early buddhist texts to refer to liberation from the cycle of rebirth.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Peter Harvey has written that Buddha attained enlightenment, or awakening at age c.35, and final nirvana on his death. The Theravada School sees nirvana as being attained in the non-returner stage of the four stages of enlightenment.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Nirvana is not necessarily related to ecstasy or bliss, although some commentators see such experiences as part of nirvana.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: L. S. Cousins said that in popular usage nirvana was "the goal of Buddhist discipline... the final removal of the disturbing mental elements which obstruct a peaceful and clear state of mind, together with a state of awakening from the mental sleep which they induce."


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Most modern scholars such as Rupert Gethin, Richard Gombrich, Donald Lopez and Paul Williams hold that nirvāṇa ("nibbana" in Pali, also called "nibbanadhatu", the property of nibbana), means the 'blowing out' or 'extinguishing' of greed, aversion, and delusion, and that this signifies the permanent cessation of samsara and rebirth.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: According to Steven Collins, a synonym widely used for nirvana in early texts is "deathless" or "deathfree" (Pali: "amata," sanskrit": amrta") and refers to a condition "where there is no death, because there is also no birth, no coming into existence, nothing made by conditioning, and therefore no time." He also adds that "the most common thing said about nirvana in Buddhist texts is that it is the ending of suffering ("dukkha")." Gethin notes, "this is not a 'thing' but an event or experience" that frees one from rebirth in samsara. According to Collins, the term is also widely used as a verb, one therefore "nirvanizes." Gombrich argues that the metaphor used in the texts of flames going out, refers to fires which were kept by priests of Brahmanism, and symbolize life in the world. Nirvana is also called "unconditioned" ("asankhata"), meaning it is unlike all other conditioned phenomena.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: The cycle of rebirth and suffering continues until a being attains nirvana. One requirement for ending this cycle is to extinguish the fires of attachment ("raga"), aversion ("dvesha") and ignorance ("moha" or "avidya)". As Bhikkhu Bodhi states "For as long as one is entangled by craving, one remains bound in saṃsāra, the cycle of birth and death; but when all craving has been extirpated, one attains Nibbāna, deliverance from the cycle of birth and death."


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: According to Donald Swearer, the journey to nirvana is not a journey to a "separate reality" (contra Vedic religion or Jainism), but a move towards calm, equanimity, nonattachment and nonself. In this sense, the soteriological view of early Buddhism is seen as a reaction to earlier Indic metaphysical views. Thomas Kasulis notes that in the early texts, nirvana is often described in negative terms, including “cessation” ("nirodha"), “the absence of craving” ("trsnaksaya"), “detachment,” “the absence of delusion,” and “the unconditioned” ("asamskrta"). He also notes that there is little discussion in the early Buddhist texts about the metaphysical nature of nirvana, since they seem to hold that metaphysical speculation is an obstacle to the goal. Kasulis mentions the "Malunkyaputta sutta" which denies any view about the existence of the Buddha after his final bodily death, all positions (the Buddha exists after death, does not exist, both or neither) are rejected. Likewise, another sutta (AN II 161) has Sāriputta saying that asking the question "is there anything else?" after the physical death of someone who has attained nirvana is conceptualizing or proliferating ("papañca") about that which is without proliferation ("appapañcaṃ") and thus a kind of distorted thinking bound up with the self.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: In the early texts, the practice of the noble path and the four dhyanas was said to lead to the extinction of the three fires, and then proceed to the cessation of all discursive thoughts and apperceptions, then ceasing all feelings (happiness and sadness). According to Collins, nirvana is associated with a meditative attainment called the 'Cessation of Perception/Ideation and Feeling' ("sannavedayitanirodha"), also known as the 'Attainment of Cessation' ("nirodhasamapatti"). In later Buddhism, dhyana practice was deemed sufficient only for the extinguishing of passion and hatred, while delusion was extinguished by insight.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Peter Harvey has defended the idea that nirvana in the Pali suttas refers to a kind of transformed and transcendent consciousness or discernment ("viññana") that has "stopped" ("nirodhena"). According to Harvey this nirvanic consciousness is said to be "objectless", "infinite" ("anantam"), "unsupported" ("appatiṭṭhita") and "non-manifestive" ("anidassana") as well as "beyond time and spatial location". Rune Johansson's "The Psychology of Nirvana" also argued that nirvana could be seen as a transformed state of mind ("citta").


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Stanislaw Schayer, a Polish scholar, argued in the 1930s that the Nikayas preserve elements of an archaic form of Buddhism which is close to Brahmanical beliefs, and survived in the Mahayana tradition. Contrary to popular opinion, the Theravada and Mahayana traditions may be "divergent, but equally reliable records of a pre-canonical Buddhism which is now lost forever." The Mahayana tradition may have preserved a very old, "pre-Canonical" and oral Buddhist tradition, which was largely, but not completely, left out of the Theravada-canon. Schayer's view saw nirvana as an immortal, deathless sphere, a transmundane reality or state. Edward Conze had similar ideas about nirvana, citing sources which speak of an eternal and "invisible infinite consciousness, which shines everywhere" as point to the view that nirvana is a kind of Absolute. A similar view was defended by M. Falk, who held that the nirvanic element, as an "essence" or pure consciousness, is immanent within samsara. M. Falk argues that the early Buddhist view of nirvana is that it is an "abode" or "place" of prajña, which is gained by the enlightened. This nirvanic element, as an "essence" or pure consciousness, is immanent within samsara.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: According to Christian Lindtner, the original and early Buddhist concepts of nirvana were similar to those found in competing Śramaṇa (strivers/ascetics) traditions such as Jainism and Upanishadic Vedism. It was not a psychological idea or purely related to a being's inner world, but a concept described in terms of the world surrounding the being, cosmology and consciousness. All Indian religions, over time, states Lindtner evolved these ideas, internalizing the state but in different ways because early and later Vedanta continued with the metaphysical idea of Brahman and soul, but Buddhism did not. In this view, the canonical Buddhist views on nirvana was a reaction against early (pre-canonical) Buddhism, along with the assumptions of Jainism and the Upanishadic thought on the idea of personal liberation. As a result of this reaction, nirvana came to be seen as a state of mind, instead of a concrete place. Elements of this precanonical Buddhism may have survived the canonisation, and its subsequent filtering out of ideas, and re-appeared in Mahayana Buddhism. According to Lindtner, the existence of multiple, and contradicting ideas, is also reflected in the works of Nagarjuna, who tried to harmonize these different ideas. According to Lindtner, this lead him to taking a "paradoxical" stance, for instance regarding nirvana, rejecting any positive description.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Referring to this view, Alexander Wynne holds that there is no evidence in the Sutta Pitaka that the Buddha held this view, at best it only shows that "some of the early Buddhists were influenced by their Brahminic peers". Wynne concludes that the Buddha rejected the views of the Vedas and that his teachings present a radical departure from these Brahminical beliefs.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: There are two stages in "nirvana", one in life, and one final nirvana upon death; the former is imprecise and general, the latter is precise and specific. The nirvana-in-life marks the life of a monk who has attained complete release from desire and suffering but still has a body, name and life. The nirvana-after-death, also called nirvana-without-substrate, is the complete cessation of everything, including consciousness and rebirth. This main distinction is between the extinguishing of the fires during life, and the final "blowing out" at the moment of death:


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: The classic Pali sutta definitions for these states are as follows:And what, monks, is the Nibbana element with residue remaining? Here, a monk is an arahant, one whose taints are destroyed, who has lived the holy life, done what had to be done, laid down the burden, reached his own goal, utterly destroyed the fetters of existence, one completely liberated through final knowledge. However, his five sense faculties remain unimpaired, by which he still experiences what is agreeable and disagreeable, still feels pleasure and pain. It is the destruction of lust, hatred, and delusion in him that is called the Nibbana element with residue remaining.And what, monks, is the Nibbana element without residue remaining? Here, a monk is an arahant ... one completely liberated through final knowledge. For him, here in this very life, all that is felt, not being delighted in, will become cool right here. That, monks, is called the Nibbana element without residue remaining.Gombrich explains that the five "skandhas" or aggregates are the bundles of firewood that fuel the three fires. The Buddhist practitioner ought to "drop" these bundles, so that the fires are no longer fueled and "blow out". When this is done, the bundles still remain as long as this life continues, but they are no longer "on fire." Collins notes that the first type, nirvana in this life is also called bodhi (awakening), nirvana of the defilements or "kilesa-(pari)nibbana," and arhatship while nirvana after death is also referred to as the nirvana of the Aggregates, "khandha-(pari)nibbana."


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: What happens with one who has reached "nirvana" after death is an unanswerable question. According to Walpola Rahula, the five aggregates vanish but there does not remain a mere "nothingness." Rahula's view, states Gombrich, is not accurate summary of the Buddhist thought, and mirrors the Upanishadic thought.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Nirvana is also described in Buddhist texts as identical to "anatta" ("anatman", non-self, lack of any self). "Anatta" means there is no abiding self or soul in any being or a permanent essence in any thing. This interpretation asserts that all reality is of dependent origination and a worldly construction of each human mind, therefore ultimately a delusion or ignorance. In Buddhist thought, this must be overcome, states Martin Southwold, through "the realization of anatta, which is nirvana".


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Nirvana in some Buddhist traditions is described as the realization of "sunyata" (emptiness or nothingness). Madhyamika Buddhist texts call this as the middle point of all dualities (Middle Way), where all subject-object discrimination and polarities disappear, there is no conventional reality, and the only ultimate reality of emptiness is all that remains.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: A commonly used metaphor for nirvana is that of a flame which goes out due to lack of fuel:Just as an oil-lamp burns because of oil and wick, but when the oil and wick are exhausted, and no others are supplied, it goes out through lack of fuel ("anaharo nibbayati"), so the [enlightened] monk … knows that after the break-up of his body, when further life is exhausted, all feelings which are rejoiced in here will become cool.Collins argues that the Buddhist view of awakening reverses the Vedic view and its metaphors. While in Vedic religion, the fire is seen as a metaphor for the good and for life, Buddhist thought uses the metaphor of fire for the three poisons and for suffering. This can be seen in the "Adittapariyaya Sutta" commonly called "the fire sermon" as well as in other similar early Buddhist texts. The fire sermon describes the end of the "fires" with a refrain which is used throughout the early texts to describe nibbana:Disenchanted, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion, he is fully released. With full release, there is the knowledge, 'Fully released.' He discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: In the "Dhammacakkapavattanasutta," the third noble truth of cessation (associated with nirvana) is defined as: "the fading away without remainder and cessation of that same craving, giving it up, relinquishing it, letting it go, not clinging to it."


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Steven Collins lists some examples of synonyms used throughout the Pali texts for Nirvana:the end, (the place, state) without corruptions, the truth, the further (shore), the subtle, very hard to see, without decay, firm, not liable to dissolution, incomparable, without differentiation, peaceful, deathless, excellent, auspicious, rest, the destruction of craving, marvellous, without affliction, whose nature is to be free from affliction, nibbana [presumably here in one or more creative etymology,= e.g., non-forest], without trouble, dispassion, purity, freedom, without attachment, the island, shelter (cave), protection, refuge, final end, the subduing of pride (or ‘intoxication’), elimination of thirst, destruction of attachment, cutting off of the round (of rebirth), empty, very hard to obtain, where there is no becoming, without misfortune, where there is nothing made, sorrowfree, without danger, whose nature is to be without danger, profound, hard to see, superior, unexcelled (without superior), unequalled, incomparable, foremost, best, without strife, clean, flawless, stainless, happiness, immeasurable, (a firm) standing point, possessing nothing.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: In the Theravada-tradition, "nibbāna" is regarded as an uncompounded or unconditioned ("asankhata") dhamma (phenomenon, event) which is "transmundane", and which is beyond our normal dualistic conceptions. In Theravada Abhidhamma texts like the "Vibhanga," "nibbana" or the "asankhata-dhatu" (unconditioned element) is defined thus:‘What is the unconditioned element ("asankhata dhatu")? It is the cessation of passion, the cessation of hatred and the cessation of delusion.’


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Furthermore, for the Theravada, nirvana is uniquely the only "asankhata" "dhamma" (unconditioned phenomenon) and unlike other schools, they do not recognize different unconditioned phenomena or different types of nirvana (such as the "apratistha" or non-abiding nirvana of Mahayana). As noted by Thiện Châu, the Theravadins and the Pudgalavadins "remained strictly faithful to the letter of the sutras" and thus held that nirvana is the only unconditioned dhamma, while other schools also posited various "asankhata dhammas" (such as the Sarvastivadin view that space or "akasa" was unconditioned).


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: The Theravada tradition identifies four progressive stages. The first three lead to favorable rebirths in more pleasant realms of existence, while the last culminates in nirvana as an Arahat who is a fully awakened person. The first three are reborn because they still have some of the fetters, while arhat has abandoned all ten fetters and, upon death will never be reborn in any realm or world, having wholly escaped "saṃsāra".


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: At the start, a monk's mind treats nirvana as an object ("nibbanadhatu"). This is followed by realizing the insight of three universal "lakshana" (marks): impermanence ("anicca"), suffering ("dukkha") and nonself ("anatman"). Thereafter the monastic practice aims at eliminating the ten fetters that lead to rebirth.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: According to Thanissaro Bhikkhu, individuals up to the level of non-returning may experience "nibbāna" as an object of consciousness. Certain contemplations with "nibbāna" as an object of samādhi lead, if developed, to the level of non-returning. At that point of contemplation, which is reached through a progression of insight, if the meditator realizes that even that state is constructed and therefore impermanent, the fetters are destroyed, arahantship is attained, and "nibbāna" is realized.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: The Theravada exegete Buddhaghosa says, in his "Visuddhimagga":It is called nibbana (extinction) because it has gone away from (nikkhanta), has escaped from (nissata), is dissociated from, craving, which has acquired in common usage the name ‘fastening (vana)’ because, by ensuring successive becoming, craving serves as a joining together, a binding together, a lacing together, of the four kinds of generation, five destinies, seven stations of consciousness and nine abodes of being.According to Buddhaghosa, "nibbāna" is achieved after a long process of committed application to the path of purification (Pali: "Vissudhimagga"). The Buddha explained that the disciplined way of life he recommended to his students ("dhamma-vinaya") is a gradual training extending often over a number of years. To be committed to this path already requires that a seed of wisdom is present in the individual. This wisdom becomes manifest in the experience of awakening ("bodhi"). Attaining "nibbāna", in either the current or some future birth, depends on effort, and is not pre-determined.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: In the "Visuddhimagga", chapter I.v.6, Buddhaghosa identifies various options within the Pali canon for pursuing a path to nirvana. According to Gombrich, this proliferation of possible paths to liberation reflects later doctrinal developments, and a growing emphasis on insight as the main liberative means, instead of the practice of "dhyana".


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: A related idea, which finds no explicit support in the Pali Canon without interpretation, and is the product of contemporary Theravada practice tradition, despite its absence in the Theravada commentaries and Abhidhamma, is that the mind of the arahant is itself "nibbāna". The Canon does not support the identification of the "luminous mind" with nirvanic consciousness, though it plays a role in the realization of nirvāṇa. Upon the destruction of the fetters, according to one scholar, "the shining nibbanic consciousness flashes out" of it, "being without object or support, so transcending all limitations."


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: K.N. Jayatilleke, a modern Sri Lankan Buddhist philosopher, holds that nirvana must be understood by a careful study of the Pali texts. Jayatilleke argues that the Pali works show that nirvana means 'extinction' as well as 'the highest positive experience of happiness'. Jayatilleke writes that despite the definition of nirvana as 'extinction', this does not mean that it is a kind of annihilation or a state of dormant nonentity, for this contradicts the statements of the Buddha that reject this interpretation. Jayatilleke holds that the early texts clearly proclaim that nothing can be said about the state of the Buddha after "paranibbana" (the end of his psycho-physical personality) because "we do not have the concepts or words to describe adequately the state of the emancipated person." This transcendent reality which our normal minds cannot grasp is not located in time or space, it is not causally conditioned, and beyond existence and non-existence. Because trying to explain "nibbana" by means of logic is impossible, the only thing to be done is to explain how to reach it, instead of dwelling on what it "is". Explaining what happens to the Buddha after nibbana is thus said to be an unanswerable.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: A similarly apophatic position is also defended by Walpola Rahula, who states that the question of what nirvana is "can never be answered completely and satisfactorily in words, because human language is too poor to express the real nature of the Absolute Truth or Ultimate Reality which is Nirvana." Rahula affirms that nibbana is most often described in negative terms because there is less danger in grasping at these terms, such as "the cessation of continuity and becoming ("bhavanirodha")", "the abandoning and destruction of desire and craving for these five aggregates of attachment", and "the extinction of "thirst" ("tanhakkhayo")." Rahula also affirms however that nibbana is not a negative or an annihilation, because there is no self to be annihilated and because 'a negative word does not necessarily indicate a negative state'. Rahula also notes that more positive terms are used to describe nibbana such as "freedom" ("mutti") and "truth" ("sacca"). Rahula also agrees that nirvana is unconditioned.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: The American Theravada monk Bhikkhu Bodhi has defended the traditional Theravada view which sees nirvana as "a reality transcendent to the entire world of mundane experience, a reality transcendent to all the realms of phenomenal existence."


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: The Sri Lankan philosopher David Kalupahana has taken a different position, he argues that the Buddha's "main philosophical insight" is the principle of causality (dependent origination) and that this "is operative in all spheres, including the highest state of spiritual development, namely, nirvana." According to Kalupahana "later scholars attempted to distinguish two spheres, one in which causation prevailed and the other which is uncaused. This latter view was, no doubt, the result of a confusion in the meanings of the two terms, "sankhata" ('compounded') and "paticcasamuppanna" ('causally conditioned')." Thus, even though nibbana is termed ""asankhata"" (un-compounded, not-put together) there is no statement in the early texts which say that nirvana is "not" dependently originated or is uncaused (the term would be "appaticcasamuppana"). He thus argues that "nirvana is a state where there is 'natural or causal happening' ("paticcasamuppada"), but not 'organized,' or 'planned' conditioning ("sankha-rana")", as well as "a state of perfect mental health ("aroga"), of perfect happiness ("parama sukha"), calmness or coolness ("sitibhuta"), and stability ("aneñja"), etc. attained in this life, or while one is alive."


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Mahasi Sayadaw, one of the most influential 20th century Theravada "vipassana" teachers, states in his ""On the nature of Nibbana"" that "nibbana is perfect peace ("santi")" and "the complete annihilation of the three cycles of defilement, action, and result of action, which all go to create mind and matter, volitional activities, etc." He further states that for arahants "no new life is formed after his decease-consciousness." Mahasi Sayadaw further states that nibbana is the cessation of the five aggregates which is like "a flame being extinguished". However this doesn't mean that "an arahant as an individual has disappeared" because there is no such thing as an "individual" in an ultimate sense, even though we use this term conventionally. Ultimate however, "there is only a succession of mental and physical phenomena arising and dissolving." For this reason, Mahasi Sayadaw holds that although for an arahant "cessation means the extinction of the successive rise and fall of the aggregates" this is not the view of annihilation ("uccheda-diṭṭhi") since there is ultimately no individual to be annihilated. Mahasi further notes that "feeling ["vedana"] ceases with the parinibbāna of the Arahant" and also that "the cessation of senses is nibbāna" (citing the "Pañcattaya Sutta"). Mahasi also affirms that even though nibbana is the "cessation of mind, matter, and mental formations" and even the cessation of "formless consciousness", it is not nothing, but it is an "absolute reality" and he also affirms that "the peace of nibbana is real."


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: In Thai Theravada, as well as among some modern Theravada scholars, there are alternative interpretations which differ from the traditional orthodox Theravada view. These interpretations see nibbana as equivalent in some way with either a special kind of mind ("pabhassara citta") or a special consciousness called "anidassana viññāṇa," "non-manifest" consciousness which is said to be 'luminous'. In one interpretation, the "luminous consciousness" is identical with nibbana. Others disagree, finding it to be not nibbana itself, but instead to be a kind of consciousness accessible only to arahants.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Some teachers of the Thai forest tradition, such as Ajahn Maha Bua taught an idea called "original mind" which when perfected is said to exist as a separate reality from the world and the aggregates"." According to Maha Bua, the indestructible mind or "citta" is characterized by awareness or knowing, which is intrinsically bright ("pabhassaram") and radiant, and though it is tangled or "darkened" in samsara, it is not destroyed. This mind is unconditioned, deathless and an independent reality. According to Bua, this mind is impure, but when it is purified of the defilements, it remains abiding in its own foundation. Maha Bua also publicly argued (in a newspaper in 1972) that one could meet with and discuss the teachings with arahants and Buddhas of the past (and that Ajahn Mun had done so) therefore positing that nibbana is a kind of higher existence. Prayudh Payutto, a modern scholar-monk who is widely seen as the most influential authority on Buddhist doctrine in Thailand, has played a prominent role in arguing against the views of Maha Bua, strictly basing his views on the Pali canon to refute such notions.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Ajahns Pasanno and Amaro, contemporary western monastics in the Thai forest tradition, note that these ideas are rooted in a passage in the Anguttara Nikaya (1.61-62) which mentions a certain ""pabhassara citta"". Citing another passage from the canon which mentions a "consciousness that is signless, boundless, all-luminous" (called "anidassana viññāṇa") they state that this "must mean a knowing of a primordial, transcendent nature."


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: A related view of nibbana has been defended by the American Thai forest monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu. According to Thanissaro, "non-manifestive consciousness" ("anidassana viññāṇa") differs from the kinds of consciousness associated to the six sense media, which have a "surface" that they fall upon and arise in response to. In a liberated individual, this is directly experienced, in a way that is free from any dependence on conditions at all. In Thanissaro's view, the luminous, unsupported consciousness associated with nibbana is directly known by noble ones without the mediation of the mental consciousness factor in dependent co-arising, and is the transcending of all objects of mental consciousness. The British academic Peter Harvey has defended a similar view of nibbana as "anidassana viññāṇa".


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: According to Paul Williams, there is also a trend in modern Thai Theravada that argues that "nirvana is indeed the true Self ("Atman"; Pali: "atta")". This dispute began when the 12th Supreme Patriarch of Thailand published a book of essays in 1939 arguing that while the conditioned world is "anatta", nibbana is "atta". According to Williams, this interpretation echoes the Mahayana "tathāgatagarbha" sutras. This position was criticized by Buddhadhasa Bhikkhu, who argued that the not-self ("anatta") perspective is what makes Buddhism unique. Fifty years after this dispute, the Dhammakaya Movement also began to teach that nibbana is not anatta, but the "true self" or "dhammakaya". According to Williams, this "dhammakaya" (dharma body) is "a luminous, radiant and clear Buddha figure free of all defilements and situated within the body of the meditator." This view has been strongly criticized as "insulting the Buddha’s teaching" and "showing disrespect to the Pali canon" by Prayudh Payutto (In his "The Dhammakaya case") and this has led to fervent debates in Thai Buddhist circles.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Another western monastic in the thai forest tradition, Ajahn Brahmāli, has recently written against all of these views, drawing on a careful study of the Nikāyas. Brahmāli concludes that the "most reasonable interpretation" of final nibbāna is "no more than the cessation of the five khandhas." Brahmāli also notes that there is a kind of samādhi that is attainable only by the awakened and is based on their knowledge of nibbana (but is "not" nibbana itself), this meditation is what is being referred to by terms such as non-manifest consciousness ("anidassana viññāṇa") and unestablished consciousness ("appatiṭṭhita viññāṇa").


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: The later Buddhist Abhidharma schools gave different meaning and interpretations of the term, moving away from the original metaphor of the extinction of the "three fires". The Sarvastivada Abhidharma compendium, the "Mahavibhasasastra," says of nirvana: As it is the cessation of defilements (klesanirodha), it is called nirvana. As it is the extinction of the triple fires, it is called nirvana. As it is the tranquility of three characteristics, it is called nirvana. As there is separation (viyoga) from bad odor (durgandha), it is called nirvana. As there is separation from destinies (gati), it is called nirvana. Vana means forest and nir means escape. As it is the escape from the forest of the aggregates, it is called nirvana. Vana means weaving and nir means negation. As there is no weaving, it is called nirvana. In a way that one with thread can easily be woven while one without that cannot be woven, in that way one with action (karma) and defilements (klesa) can easily be woven into life and death while an asaiksa who is without any action and defilements cannot be woven into life and death. That is why it is called nirvana. Vana means new birth and nir means negation. As there is no more new birth, it is called nirvana. Vana means bondage and nir means separation. As it is separation from bondage, it is called nirvana. Vana means all discomforts of life and death and nir means passing beyond. As it passes beyond all discomforts of life and death, it is called nirvana.According to Soonil Hwang, the Sarvastivada school held that there were two kinds of nirodha (extinction), extinction without knowledge ("apratisamkhyanirodha") and extinction through knowledge ("pratisamkhyanirodha"), which is the equivalent of nirvana. In the Sarvastivada Abhidharma, extinction through knowledge was equivalent to nirvana, and was defined by its intrinsic nature ("svabhava"), ‘all extinction which is disjunction ("visamyoga")’. This dharma is defined by the "Abhidharmakosha" as "a special understanding, the penetration ("pratisamkhyana") of suffering and the other noble truths." Soonil explains the Sarvastivada view of nirvana as "the perpetual separation of an impure dharma from a series of aggregates through the antidote, ‘acquisition of disjunction’ ("visamyogaprapti")." Because the Sarvastivadins held that all dharmas exist in the three times, they saw the destruction of defilements as impossible and thus "the elimination of a defilement is referred to as a ‘separation’ from the series." Soonil adds:That is to say, the acquisition of the defilement is negated, or technically ‘disjoined’ ("visamyoga"), through the power of knowledge that terminates the junction between that defilement and the series of aggregates. By reason of this separation, then, there arises ‘the acquisition of disjunction’ ("visamyogaprapti") that serves as an antidote ("pratipaksa"), which henceforward prevents the junction between the defilement and this series. The Sarvastivadins also held that nirvana was a real existent ("dravyasat") which perpetually protects a series of dharmas from defilements in the past, present and future. Their interpretation of nirvana became an issue of debate between them and the Sautrantika school. For the Sautrantikas, nirvana "was not a real existent but a mere designation ("prajñaptisat") and was non-existence succeeding existence ("pascadabhava")." It is something merely spoken of conventionally, without an intrinsic nature ("svabhava"). The "Abhidharmakosha", explaining the Sautrantika view of nirvana, states:The extinction through knowledge is, when latent defilements ("anusaya") and life ("janman") that have already been produced are extinguished, non-arising of further such by the power of knowledge ("pratisamkhya").Thus for the Sautrantikas, nirvana was simply the "non-arising of further latent defilement when all latent defilements that have been produced have already been extinguished."


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Meanwhile, the Pudgalavada school interpreted nirvana as the single Absolute truth which constitutes "the negation, absence, cessation of all that constitutes the world in which we live, act and suffer". According to Thiện Châu, for the Pudgalavadins, nirvana is seen as totally different than the compounded realm, since it the uncompounded ("asamskrta") realm where no compounded things exist, and it is also beyond reasoning and expression. One of the few surviving Pudgalavada texts defines nirvana as:Absolute truth is the definitive cessation of all activities of speech (vac) and of all thoughts (citta). Activity is bodily action (kayakarman): speech (vac) is that of the voice (vakkarman); thought is that of the mind (manaskarman). If these three (actions) cease definitively, that is absolute truth which is Nirvana.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: According to Andre Bareau, the Mahāsāṃghika school held that the nirvana reached by arhats was fundamentally inferior to that of the Buddhas. Regarding the nirvana reached by the Buddha, they held that his longevity ("ayu"), his body ("rupa, sarira") and divine power ("tejas") were infinite, unlimited and supramundane ("lokuttara"). Therefore, they held to a kind of docetism which posited that Buddhas only "appear" to be born into the world and thus when they die and enter nirvana, this is only a fiction. In reality, the Buddha remains in the form of a body of enjoyment ("sambhogakaya") and continues to create many forms ("nirmana") adapted to the different needs of beings in order to teach them through clever means ("upaya").


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: According to Guang Xing, Mahāsāṃghikas held that there were two aspects of a Buddha's attainment: the true Buddha who is omniscient and omnipotent, and the manifested forms through which he liberates sentient beings through his skillful means. For the Mahāsāṃghikas, the historical Gautama Buddha was merely one of these transformation bodies (Skt. "nirmāṇakāya").


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Bareau also writes that for the Mahāsāṃghika school, only wisdom (prajña) can reach nirvana, not samadhi. Bareau notes that this might be the source of the "prajñaparamita" sutras.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Regarding the Ekavyāvahārika branch of the Mahāsāṃghikas, Bareau states that both samsara and nirvana were nominal designations ("prajñapti") and devoid of any real substance. According to Nalinaksha Dutt, for the Ekavyāvahārika, all dharmas are conventional and thus unreal (even the absolute was held to be contingent or dependent) while for the Lokottaravada branch, worldly dharmas are unreal but supramundane dharmas like nirvana are real.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: The Mahāyāna (Great Vehicle) tradition, which promotes the bodhisattva path as the highest spiritual ideal over the goal of arhatship, envisions different views of nirvāṇa than the Nikaya Buddhist schools. Mahāyāna Buddhism is a diverse group of various Buddhist traditions and therefore there is no single unified Mahāyāna view on nirvāṇa. However, it is generally believed that remaining in saṃsāra in order to help other beings is a noble goal for a Mahāyānist. According to Paul Williams, there are at least two conflicting models on the bodhisattva's attitude to nirvāṇa.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: The first model seems to be promoted in the "Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra" and it states that a bodhisattva postpones their nirvāṇa until they have saved numerous sentient beings, then, after reaching Buddhahood, a bodhisattva passes on to cessation just like an arhat (and thus ceases to help others). In this model, their only difference to an arhat is that they have spent aeons helping other beings and have become a Buddha to teach the Dharma. This model seems to have been influential in the early period of Indian Buddhism. Etienne Lamotte, in his analysis of the "Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa," notes that this text also supports the idea that after entering complete nirvāṇa ("parinirvāṇa"), a bodhisattva is "able to do nothing more for gods or for men" and therefore he seeks to obtain "wisdom similar to but slightly inferior to that of the Buddhas, which allows him to remain for a long time in saṃsāra in order to dedicate himself to salvific activity by many and varied skillful means."


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: The second model is one which does not teach that one must postpone nirvāṇa. This model eventually developed a comprehensive theory of nirvāṇa taught by the Yogacara school and later Indian Mahāyāna, which states there are at least two kinds of nirvāṇa, the nirvāṇa of an arhat and a superior type of nirvāṇa called "apratiṣṭhita ("non-abiding).


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: The classic Mahāyāna Yogacara view posits that there are at least two types of nirvana, holding that what is called "<nowiki>"</nowiki>apratiṣṭhita-nirvana<nowiki>"</nowiki>" ("non-abiding", non-localized", "non-fixed") to be the highest nirvana, and more profound than "<nowiki>"</nowiki>pratiṣṭhita-nirvāṇa<nowiki>"</nowiki>", the ‘localized’, lesser nirvana. According to the classic Indian theory, this lesser, abiding nirvana is achieved by followers of the "inferior" vehicle ("hinayana") schools which are said to only work towards their own personal liberation. From this perspective, the hinayana path only leads to one's own liberation, either as sravaka (listener, hearer, or disciple) or as pratyekabuddha (solitary realizer).


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: According to Robert Buswell and Donald Lopez, "<nowiki>"</nowiki>apratiṣṭhita-nirvana<nowiki>"</nowiki>" is the standard Mahāyāna view of the attainment of a Buddha, which enables them to freely return to "samsara" in order to help sentient beings, while still being in a kind of nirvana. The Mahāyāna path is thus said to aim at a further realization, namely an active Buddhahood that does not dwell in a static "nirvana", but out of compassion ("karuṇā") engages in enlightened activity to liberate beings for as long as "samsara" remains. "Apratiṣṭhita-nirvana" is said to be reached when bodhisattvas eradicate both the afflictive obstructions ("klesavarana") and the obstructions to omniscience ("jñeyavarana"), and is therefore different than the nirvana of arhats, who have eradicated only the former.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: According to Alan Sponberg, "apratiṣṭhita-nirvana" is "a nirvana that is not permanently established in, or bound to, any one realm or sphere of activity". This is contrasted with a kind of nirvana which is "permanently established or fixed ("pratiṣṭhita") in the transcendent state of nirvana-without-remainder ("nirupadhisesa-nirvana")." According to Sponberg this doctrine developed among Yogacara Buddhists who rejected earlier views which were based on an individual liberation aimed at a transcendent state, separated from the mundane sphere of human existence. Mahayana Buddhists rejected this view as inconsistent with the universalist Mahayana ideal of the salvation of all beings and with the absolutist non-dual Mahayana perspective that did not see an ultimate distinction between samsara and nirvana. Sponberg also notes that the Madhyamika school also had a hand in developing this idea, due to their rejection of dualistic concepts which separated samsara and nirvana and their promotion of a form of liberation which was totally without duality.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Though the idea that Buddhas remain active in the world can be traced back to the Mahasamghika school, the term "apratiṣṭhita-nirvana" seems to be a Yogacara innovation. According to Gadjin Nagao, the term is likely to be an innovation of the Yogacaras, and possibly of the scholar Asanga (fl. 4th century CE). Sponberg states that this doctrine presents a "Soteriological Innovation in Yogacara Buddhism" which can be found mainly in works of the Yogacara school such as the "Sandhinirmocana-sutra," the "Lankavatarasutra", the "Mahayanasutralamkara", and is most fully worked out in the "Mahayana-samgraha" of Asanga. In Chapter IX of the "samgraha", Asanga presents the classic definition of "apratiṣṭhita-nirvana" in the context of discussing the severing of mental obstacles ("avarana"):This severing is the "apratiṣṭhita-nirvana" of the bodhisattva. It has as its characteristic ("laksana") the revolution ("paravrtti") of the dual base ("asraya") in which one relinquishes all defilements ("klesa"), but does not abandon the world of death and rebirth ("samsara"). In his commentary on this passage, Asvabhava (6th century), states that the wisdom which leads to this state is termed non-discriminating cognition ("nirvikalpaka-jñana)" and he also notes that this state is a union of wisdom ("prajña") and compassion ("karuna"): The bodhisattva dwells in this revolution of the base as if in an immaterial realm ("arupyadhatu"). On the one hand—with respect to his own personal interests ("svakartham")—he is fully endowed with superior wisdom ("adhiprajña") and is thus not subject to the afflictions ("klesa") while on the other hand—with respect to the interests of other beings ("parartham")—he is fully endowed with great compassion ("mahakaruna") and thus never ceases to dwell in the world of death and re-birth ("samsara"). According to Sponberg, in Yogacara, the Buddha's special wisdom that allows participation in both nirvana and samsara, termed non-discriminating cognition ("nirvikalpaka-jñana)" has various aspects: a negative aspect which is free from discrimination that binds one to samsara and positive and dynamic aspects which intuitively cognize the Absolute and give a Buddha "access to the Absolute without yielding efficacy in the relative."


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Most sutras of the Mahāyāna tradition, states Jan Nattier, present three alternate goals of the path: Arhatship, Pratyekabuddhahood, and Buddhahood. However, according an influential Mahāyāna text called the Lotus Sutra, while the lesser attainment of individual "nirvana" is taught as a skillful means by the Buddha in order to help beings of lesser capacities; ultimately, the highest and "only" goal is the attainment of Buddhahood. The Lotus sutra further states that, although these three paths are "seemingly" taught by Buddhas as separate vehicles ("yana"), they are really all just skillful ways ("upaya") of teaching a single path ("ekayana"), which is the bodhisattva path to full Buddhahood. Thus, these three separate goals are not really different at all, the 'lesser' paths are actually just clever teaching devices used by Buddhas to get people to practice, eventually though, they will be led to the one and only path of Mahāyāna and full Buddhahood.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: The Mahāyāna commentary the "Abhisamayalamkara" presents the path of the bodhisattva as a progressive formula of "Five Paths" ("pañcamārga"). A practitioner on the "Five Paths" advances through a progression of ten stages, referred to as the bodhisattva "bhūmis" (grounds or levels).


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: The end stage practice of the Mahāyāna removes the imprints of delusions, the obstructions to omniscience ("sarvākārajñatā"), which prevent simultaneous and direct knowledge of all phenomena. Only Buddhas have overcome these obstructions and, therefore, only Buddhas have omniscience knowledge, which refers to the power of a being in some way to have "simultaneous knowledge of all things whatsoever". From the Mahāyāna point of view, an arhat who has achieved the nirvana of the Lesser Vehicle will still have certain subtle obscurations that prevent the arhat from realizing complete omniscience. When these final obscurations are removed, the practitioner will attain "apratiṣṭhita-nirvana" and achieve full omniscience.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: Some Mahāyāna traditions see the Buddha in docetic terms, viewing his visible manifestations as projections from its nirvanic state. According to Etienne Lamotte, Buddhas are always and at all times in nirvana, and their corporeal displays of themselves and their Buddhic careers are ultimately illusory. Lamotte writes of the Buddhas:


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: This doctrine, developed among the Mahāsaṃghikas, where the historical person, Gautama Buddha, was one of these transformation bodies (Skt. "nirmāṇakāya"), while the essential Buddha is equated with the transcendental Buddha called "dharmakāya". In Mahāyāna, this eventually developed into the doctrine of the "Three Bodies" of the Buddha ("Trikaya"). This doctrine is interpreted in different ways by the different Mahāyāna traditions. According to Reginald Ray, it is "the body of reality itself, without specific, delimited form, wherein the Buddha is identified with the spiritually charged nature of everything that is."


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: An alternative idea of Mahāyāna nirvana is found in the "Tathāgatagarbha sūtras". The title itself means a "garbha" (womb, matrix, seed) containing "Tathagata" (Buddha). These Sutras suggest, states Paul Williams, that 'all sentient beings contain a Tathagata' as their 'essence, core or essential inner nature'. The "tathāgatagarbha" doctrine "("also called "buddhadhatu, buddha-nature)", at its earliest probably appeared about the later part of the 3rd century CE, and is verifiable in Chinese translations of 1st millennium CE. Most scholars consider the "tathāgatagarbha" doctrine of an 'essential nature' in every living being is equivalent to 'Self', and it contradicts the "no self" (or no soul, no atman, anatta) doctrines in a vast majority of Buddhist texts, leading scholars to posit that the "Tathagatagarbha Sutras" were written to promote Buddhism to non-Buddhists. The Mahāyāna tradition thus often discusses nirvana with its concept of the "tathāgatagarbha", the innate presence of Buddhahood. According to Alex Wayman, Buddha nature has its roots in the idea of an innately pure luminous mind ("prabhasvara citta",) "which is only adventitiously covered over by defilements ("agantukaklesa")" lead to the development of the concept of Buddha-nature, the idea that Buddha-hood is already innate, but not recognised.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: The "tathāgatagarbha" has numerous interpretations in the various schools of Mahāyāna and Vajrayana Buddhism. Indian Madhyamaka philosophers generally interpreted the theory as a description of emptiness and as a non implicative negation (a negation which leaves nothing un-negated). According to Karl Brunnholzl, early Indian Yogacaras like Asanga and Vasubandhu referred to the term as "nothing but suchness in the sense of twofold identitylessness". However some later Yogacarins like Ratnakarasanti considered it "equivalent to naturally luminous mind, nondual self-awareness."


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: The debate as to whether "tathāgatagarbha" was just a way to refer to emptiness or whether it referred to some kind of mind or consciousness also resumed in Chinese Buddhism, with some Chinese Yogacarins, like Fazang and Ratnamati supporting the idea that it was an eternal non-dual mind, while Chinese Madhyamikas like Jizang rejecting this view and seeing "tathāgatagarbha" as emptiness and "the middle way."


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: In some Tantric Buddhist texts such as the "Samputa Tantra," nirvana is described as purified, non-dualistic 'superior mind'.


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: In Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, the debate continues to this day. There are those like the Gelug school, who argue that "tathāgatagarbha" is just emptiness (described either as "dharmadhatu", the nature of phenomena, or a nonimplicative negation). Then there are those who see it as the non-dual union of the mind's unconditioned emptiness and conditioned lucidity (the view of Gorampa of the Sakya school). Others such as the Jonang school and some Kagyu figures, see "tathāgatagarbha" as a kind of Absolute which "is empty of adventitious defilements which are intrinsically other than it, but is not empty of its own inherent existence".


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: According to some scholars, the language used in the "tathāgatagarbha" genre of sutras can be seen as an attempt to state orthodox Buddhist teachings of dependent origination using positive language. Kosho Yamamoto translates the explanation of nirvana in the "Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra" (c. 100-220 CE) as follows:


title: Nirvana (Buddhism)

text: In the "Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra", the Buddha speak of four attributes which make up nirvana. Writing on this Mahayana understanding of nirvana, William Edward Soothill and Lewis Hodous state:


title: United States in World War I

text: The United States declared war on the German Empire on April 6, 1917, nearly three years after World War I started. A ceasefire and Armistice was declared on November 11, 1918. Before entering the war, the U.S. had remained neutral, though it had been an important supplier to the United Kingdom, France, and the other powers of the Allies of World War I.


title: United States in World War I

text: The U.S. made its major contributions in terms of supplies, raw material, and money, starting in 1917. American soldiers under General of the Armies John Pershing, Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), arrived at the rate of 10,000 men a day on the Western Front in the summer of 1918. During the war, the U.S. mobilized over 4 million military personnel and suffered the loss of 65,000 soldiers. The war saw a dramatic expansion of the United States government in an effort to harness the war effort and a significant increase in the size of the U.S. Armed Forces.


title: United States in World War I

text: After a relatively slow start in mobilizing the economy and labor force, by spring 1918, the nation was poised to play a role in the conflict. Under the leadership of President Woodrow Wilson, the war represented the climax of the Progressive Era as it sought to bring reform and democracy to the world. There was substantial public opposition to U.S. entry into the war.


title: United States in World War I

text: The American entry into World War I came on April 6, 1917, after a year long effort by President Woodrow Wilson to get the United States into the war. Apart from an Anglophile element urging early support for the British, American public opinion sentiment for neutrality was particularly strong among Irish Americans, German Americans and Scandinavian Americans, as well as among church leaders and among women in general. On the other hand, even before World War I had broken out, American opinion had been more negative toward the German Empire than towards any other country in Europe. Over time, especially after reports of atrocities in Belgium in 1914 and following the sinking of the passenger liner "RMS Lusitania" in 1915, the American people increasingly came to see the German Empire as the aggressor.


title: United States in World War I

text: As U.S. President, it was Wilson who made the key policy decisions over foreign affairs: while the country was at peace, the domestic economy ran on a "laissez-faire" basis, with American banks making huge loans to Britain and France — funds that were in large part used to buy munitions, raw materials, and food from across the Atlantic. Until 1917, Wilson made minimal preparations for a land war and kept the United States Army on a small peacetime footing, despite increasing demands for enhanced preparedness. He did, however, expand the United States Navy.


title: United States in World War I

text: In 1917, with the Russian Revolution and widespread disillusionment over the war, and with Britain and France low on credit, the German Empire appeared to have the upper hand in Europe, while the Ottoman Empire clung to its possessions in the Middle East. In the same year, the German Empire decided to resume unrestricted submarine warfare against any vessel approaching British waters; this attempt to starve Britain into surrender was balanced against the knowledge that it would almost certainly bring the United States into the war. The German Empire also made a secret offer to help Mexico regain territories lost in the Mexican–American War in an encoded telegram known as the Zimmermann Telegram, which was intercepted by British Intelligence. Publication of that communique outraged Americans just as German U-boats started sinking American merchant ships in the North Atlantic. Wilson then asked Congress for "a war to end all wars" that would "make the world safe for democracy", and Congress voted to declare war on the German Empire on April 6, 1917. On December 7, 1917, the U.S. declared war on Austria-Hungary. U.S. troops began arriving on the Western Front in large numbers in 1918.


title: United States in World War I

text: After the war began in 1914, the United States proclaimed a policy of neutrality despite President Woodrow Wilson's antipathies against the German Empire.


title: United States in World War I

text: When the German U-boat "U-20" sank the British liner on 7 May 1915 with 128 U.S. citizens aboard, Wilson demanded an end to German attacks on passenger ships, and warned that the USA would not tolerate unrestricted submarine warfare in violation of "American rights" and of "international and obligations." Wilson's Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, resigned, believing that the President's protests against the German use of U-boat attacks conflicted with America's official commitment to neutrality. On the other hand, Wilson came under pressure from war hawks led by former president Theodore Roosevelt, who denounced German acts as "piracy", and from British delegations under Cecil Spring Rice and Sir Edward Grey.


title: United States in World War I

text: U.S. Public opinion reacted with outrage to the suspected German sabotage of Black Tom in Jersey City, New Jersey on 30 July 1916, and to the Kingsland explosion on 11 January 1917 in present-day Lyndhurst, New Jersey.


title: United States in World War I

text: Crucially, by the spring of 1917, President Wilson's official commitment to neutrality had finally unraveled. Wilson realized he needed to enter the war in order to shape the peace and implement his vision for a League of Nations at the Paris Peace Conference.


title: United States in World War I

text: American public opinion was divided, with most Americans until early 1917 largely of the opinion that the United States should stay out of the war. Opinion changed gradually, partly in response to German actions in Belgium and the "Lusitania", partly as German Americans lost influence, and partly in response to Wilson's position that America had to play a role to make the world safe for democracy.


title: United States in World War I

text: In the general public, there was little if any support for entering the war on the side of the German Empire. The great majority of German Americans, as well as Scandinavian Americans, wanted the United States to remain neutral; however, at the outbreak of war, thousands of U.S. citizens had tried to enlist in the German army. The Irish Catholic community, based in the large cities and often in control of the Democratic Party apparatus, was strongly hostile to helping Britain in any way, especially after the Easter uprising of 1916 in Ireland. Most of the Protestant church leaders in the United States, regardless of their theology, favored pacifistic solutions whereby the United States would broker a peace. Most of the leaders of the women's movement, typified by Jane Addams, likewise sought pacifistic solutions. The most prominent opponent of war was industrialist Henry Ford, who personally financed and led a peace ship to Europe to try to negotiate among the belligerents; no negotiations resulted.


title: United States in World War I

text: Britain had significant support among intellectuals and families with close ties to Britain. The most prominent leader was Samuel Insull of Chicago, a leading industrialist who had emigrated from England. Insull funded many propaganda efforts, and financed young Americans who wished to fight by joining the Canadian military.


title: United States in World War I

text: By 1915 Americans were paying much more attention to the war. The sinking of the "Lusitania" aroused furious denunciations of German brutality. In Eastern cities a new "Preparedness" movement emerged. It argued that the United States needed to build up immediately strong naval and land forces for defensive purposes; an unspoken assumption was that America would fight sooner or later. The driving forces behind Preparedness were all Republicans, notably General Leonard Wood, ex-president Theodore Roosevelt, and former secretaries of war Elihu Root and Henry Stimson; they enlisted many of the nation's most prominent bankers, industrialists, lawyers and scions of prominent families. Indeed, there emerged an "Atlanticist" foreign policy establishment, a group of influential Americans drawn primarily from upper-class lawyers, bankers, academics, and politicians of the Northeast, committed to a strand of Anglophile internationalism.


title: United States in World War I

text: The Preparedness movement had what political scientists call a "realism" philosophy of world affairs—they believed that economic strength and military muscle were more decisive than idealistic crusades focused on causes like democracy and national self-determination. Emphasizing over and over the weak state of national defenses, they showed that the United States' 100,000-man Army, even augmented by the 112,000-strong National Guard, was outnumbered 20 to one by the German army; similarly in 1915, the armed forces of Great Britain and the British Empire, France, Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ottoman Empire, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Belgium, Japan and Greece were all larger and more experienced than the United States military.


title: United States in World War I

text: They called for UMT or "universal military service" under which the 600,000 men who turned 18 every year would be required to spend six months in military training, and then be assigned to reserve units. The small regular army would primarily be a training agency. Public opinion, however, was not willing to go that far.


title: United States in World War I

text: Both the regular army and the Preparedness leaders had a low opinion of the National Guard, which they saw as politicized, provincial, poorly armed, ill trained, too inclined to idealistic crusading (as against Spain in 1898), and too lacking in understanding of world affairs. The National Guard on the other hand was securely rooted in state and local politics, with representation from a very broad cross section of the U.S. political economy. The Guard was one of the nation's few institutions that (in some northern states) accepted black men on an equal footing with white men.


title: United States in World War I

text: The Democratic party saw the Preparedness movement as a threat. Roosevelt, Root and Wood were prospective Republican presidential candidates. More subtly, the Democrats were rooted in localism that appreciated the National Guard, and the voters were hostile to the rich and powerful in the first place. Working with the Democrats who controlled Congress, Wilson was able to sidetrack the Preparedness forces. Army and Navy leaders were forced to testify before Congress to the effect that the nation's military was in excellent shape.


title: United States in World War I

text: In reality, neither the U.S. Army nor U.S. Navy was in shape for war in terms of manpower, size, military hardware or experience. The Navy had fine ships but Wilson had been using them to threaten Mexico, and the fleet's readiness had suffered. The crews of the "Texas" and the "New York", the two newest and largest battleships, had never fired a gun, and the morale of the sailors was low. The Army and Navy air forces were tiny in size. Despite the flood of new weapons systems unveiled in the war in Europe, the Army was paying scant attention. For example, it was making no studies of trench warfare, poison gas or tanks, and was unfamiliar with the rapid evolution of aerial warfare. The Democrats in Congress tried to cut the military budget in 1915. The Preparedness movement effectively exploited the surge of outrage over the "Lusitania" in May 1915, forcing the Democrats to promise some improvements to the military and naval forces. Wilson, less fearful of the Navy, embraced a long-term building program designed to make the fleet the equal of the British Royal Navy by the mid-1920s, although this would not come to pass until World War II. "Realism" was at work here; the admirals were Mahanians and they therefore wanted a surface fleet of heavy battleships second to none—that is, equal to Great Britain. The facts of submarine warfare (which necessitated destroyers, not battleships) and the possibilities of imminent war with the German Empire (or with Britain, for that matter), were simply ignored.


title: United States in World War I

text: Wilson's decision touched off a firestorm. Secretary of War Lindley Garrison adopted many of the proposals of the Preparedness leaders, especially their emphasis on a large federal reserves and abandonment of the National Guard. Garrison's proposals not only outraged the provincial politicians of both parties, they also offended a strongly held belief shared by the liberal wing of the Progressive movement, that was, that warfare always had a hidden economic motivation. Specifically, they warned the chief warmongers were New York bankers (such as J. P. Morgan) with millions at risk, profiteering munition makers (such as Bethlehem Steel, which made armor, and DuPont, which made powder) and unspecified industrialists searching for global markets to control. Antiwar critics blasted them. These selfish special interests were too powerful, especially, Senator La Follette noted, in the conservative wing of the Republican Party. The only road to peace was disarmament in the eyes of many.


title: United States in World War I

text: Garrison's plan unleashed the fiercest battle in peacetime history over the relationship of military planning to national goals. In peacetime, War Department arsenals and Navy yards manufactured nearly all munitions that lacked civilian uses, including warships, artillery, naval guns, and shells. Items available on the civilian market, such as food, horses, saddles, wagons, and uniforms were always purchased from civilian contractors.


title: United States in World War I

text: Peace leaders like Jane Addams of Hull House and David Starr Jordan of Stanford University redoubled their efforts, and now turned their voices against the President because he was "sowing the seeds of militarism, raising up a military and naval caste." Many ministers, professors, farm spokesmen and labor union leaders joined in, with powerful support from a band of four dozen southern Democrats in Congress who took control of the House Military Affairs Committee. Wilson, in deep trouble, took his cause to the people in a major speaking tour in early 1916, a warm-up for his reelection campaign that fall.


title: United States in World War I

text: Wilson seemed to have won over the middle classes, but had little impact on the largely ethnic working classes and the deeply isolationist farmers. Congress still refused to budge, so Wilson replaced Garrison as Secretary of War with Newton Baker, the Democratic mayor of Cleveland and an outspoken "opponent" of preparedness. The upshot was a compromise passed in May 1916, as the war raged on and Berlin was debating whether America was so weak it could be ignored. The Army was to double in size to 11,300 officers and 208,000 men, with no reserves, and a National Guard that would be enlarged in five years to 440,000 men. Summer camps on the Plattsburg model were authorized for new officers, and the government was given $20 million to build a nitrate plant of its own. Preparedness supporters were downcast, the antiwar people were jubilant. The United States would now be too weak to go to war. Colonel Robert L. Bullard privately complained that "Both sides [Britain and the German Empire] treat us with scorn and contempt; our fool, smug conceit of superiority has been exploded in our faces and deservedly.". The House gutted the naval plans as well, defeating a "big navy" plan by 189 to 183, and canceling the battleships. The battle of Jutland (May 31/June 1, 1916) saw the main German High Seas Fleet engage in a monumental yet inconclusive clash with the far stronger Grand Fleet of the Royal Navy. Arguing this battle proved the validity of Mahanian doctrine, the navalists took control in the Senate, broke the House coalition, and authorized a rapid three-year buildup of all classes of warships. A new weapons system, naval aviation, received $3.5 million, and the government was authorized to build its own armor-plate factory. The very weakness of American military power encouraged the German Empire to start its unrestricted submarine attacks in 1917. It knew this meant war with America, but it could discount the immediate risk because the U.S. Army was negligible and the new warships would not be at sea until 1919 by which time the war would be over, Berlin thought, with the German Empire victorious. The notion that armaments led to war was turned on its head: refusal to arm in 1916 led to war in 1917.


title: United States in World War I

text: In January 1917, the German Empire resumed unrestricted submarine warfare in hopes of forcing Britain to begin peace talks. The German Foreign minister, Arthur Zimmermann invited revolution-torn Mexico to join the war as the German Empire's ally against the United States if the United States declared war on the German Empire in the Zimmermann Telegram. In return, the Germans would send Mexico money and help it recover the territories of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona that Mexico lost during the Mexican–American War 70 years earlier. British intelligence intercepted the telegram and passed the information on to Washington. Wilson released the Zimmerman note to the public and Americans saw it as a "casus belli"—a justification for war.


title: United States in World War I

text: At first, Wilson tried to maintain neutrality while fighting off the submarines by arming American merchant ships with guns powerful enough to sink German submarines on the surface (but useless when the U-boats were under water). After submarines sank seven U.S. merchant ships, Wilson finally went to Congress calling for a declaration of war on the German Empire, which Congress voted on April 6, 1917.


title: United States in World War I

text: As a result of the Russian February Revolution in 1917, the Tsar abdicated and was replaced by a Russian Provisional Government. This helped overcome Wilson's reluctance to having the U.S. fight alongside a country ruled by an absolutist monarch. Pleased by the Provisional Government's pro-war stance, the U.S. accorded the new government diplomatic recognition on March 9, 1917.


title: United States in World War I

text: Congress declared war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire on December 7, 1917, but never made declarations of war against the other Central Powers, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire or the various small co-belligerents allied with the Central Powers. Thus, the United States remained uninvolved in the military campaigns in central and eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Caucasus, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific.


title: United States in World War I

text: The home front required a systematic mobilization of the entire population and the entire economy to produce the soldiers, food supplies, munitions, and money needed to win the war. It took a year to reach a satisfactory state. Although the war had already raged for two years, Washington had avoided planning, or even recognition of the problems that the British and other Allies had to solve on their home fronts. As a result, the level of confusion was high at first. Finally efficiency was achieved in 1918.


title: United States in World War I

text: The war came in the midst of the Progressive Era, when efficiency and expertise were highly valued. Therefore, the federal government set up a multitude of temporary agencies with 50,000 to 1,000,000 new employees to bring together the expertise necessary to redirect the economy into the production of munitions and food necessary for the war, as well as for propaganda purposes.


title: United States in World War I

text: The most admired agency for efficiency was the United States Food Administration under Herbert Hoover. It launched a massive campaign to teach Americans to economize on their food budgets and grow victory gardens in their backyards for family consumption. It managed the nation's food distribution and prices and built Hoover's reputation as an independent force of presidential quality.


title: United States in World War I

text: In 1917 the government was unprepared for the enormous economic and financial strains of the war. Washington hurriedly took direct control of the economy. The total cost of the war came to $33 billion, which was 42 times as large as all Treasury receipts in 1916. A constitutional amendment legitimized income tax in 1913; its original very low levels were dramatically increased, especially at the demand of the Southern progressive elements. North Carolina Congressman Claude Kitchin, chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee argued that since Eastern businessman had been leaders in calling for war, they should pay for it. In an era when most workers earned under $1000 a year, the basic exemption was $2,000 for a family. Above that level taxes began at the 2 percent rate in 1917, jumping to 12 percent in 1918. On top of that there were surcharges of one percent for incomes above $5,000 to 65 percent for incomes above $1,000,000. As a result, the richest 22 percent of American taxpayers paid 96 percent of individual income taxes. Businesses faced a series of new taxes, especially on "excess profits" ranging from 20 percent to 80 percent on profits above pre-war levels. There were also excise taxes that everyone paid who purchased an automobile, jewelry, camera, or a motorboat.


title: United States in World War I

text: The greatest source of revenue came from war bonds, which were effectively merchandised to the masses through an elaborate innovative campaign to reach average Americans. Movie stars and other celebrities, supported by millions of posters, and an army of Four-Minute Men speakers explained the importance of buying bonds. In the third Liberty Loan campaign of 1918, more than half of all families subscribed. In total, $21 billion in bonds were sold with interest from 3.5 to 4.7 percent. The new Federal Reserve system encouraged banks to loan families money to buy bonds. All the bonds were redeemed, with interest, after the war. Before the United States entered the war, New York banks had loaned heavily to the British. After the U.S. entered in April 1917, the Treasury made $10 billion in long-term loans to Britain, France and the other allies, with the expectation the loans would be repaid after the war. Indeed, the United States insisted on repayment, which by the 1950s eventually was achieved by every country except Russia.