Budhism & Nirvana

One of the dominant Buddhist concepts central to Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood is nirvana, in its ontological sense of nothingness.

Here is a representative quotation attributed to Siddhārtha Gautama, the Buddha:

"Where there is not anything, where nothing is grasped, there is the Isle of No-Beyond. Nirvāṇa do I call it -- the utter extinction of aging and dying."