The term nirvana means “blowing out.” Just as a wind can blow out a lamp, so self-discipline and religious practice can extinguish the flame of the obstructions that cause our suffering. The Samyutta-nikaya contains a passage that explains nirvana more explicitly. An itinerant ascetic asks the Buddha’s disciple Shariputra what the nature of nirvana is. Shariputra replies that nirvana is the condition in which all greed, anger, and ignorance have been extinguished. In short, it is a state free of the three poisons. Far from being an inert, inactive condition attained only after physical and mental annihilation, nirvana is the condition in which all human potential is realized in the ideal state of enlightenment.