In Buddhist Asia, popular culture mischaracterizes nirvana, imagining it as a heavenly realm where old monks go after many lifetimes’ work of purity and self-denial. Even Westerners can naively think of nirvana as far away, some transcendent state attained by yogis in the Himalayas. This is wrong. “Nirvana,” says the Buddha, “is immediate, visible here and now, inviting, attractive, comprehensible to the wise heart.”
