There is no such thing as an individual who can achieve nirvana. Enlightenment, emancipation, or nirvana is the realization that there is no you as an autonomous being, but just aliveness or life. There are only parts of yourself that are aware of certain things, but not others. You cannot reach enlightenment alone, it takes all of us together.
In Buddhism, enlightenment is seeing reality for what it is. It is awakening from ignorance about the true nature of existence. When you realize this, you see that everything is interrelated and nothing has a separate existence apart from anything else. The only way to understand this is by experience.
To illustrate this, Buddhists often use the example of someone who is completely blind from birth. They would not be able to see reality as it is. Even if they were given eyes, they could never understand what sight is because they have never experienced it before.
For this person, pain does not go away when someone opens their eyes. Pain is part of the reality that needs to be accepted. To try to get rid of it using knowledge or logic would only serve to perpetuate the problem because then they would need to open their eyes again to revert back to not knowing what pain is.
Instead, they accept pain as part of living and move on with their life.
So, yeah, even a layman may achieve Nirvana. A guy can achieve nirvana without meditating, becoming religious, giving up anything, or even doing anything for it. There is only one requirement: live your life and respond to it. If you do whatever you want, whenever you want, then you have failed to live your life properly.
In other words, don't be afraid to experience life fully. Don't hold back from anything that makes you feel good or interesting. And most important, connect with others and care about them. That's what will help you reach nirvana.
No, nirvana, enlightenment, or awakening are not achievable. They are states of being that we can strive for but never reach on our own.
As Buddhism teaches us, all life is suffering. All living things struggle with pain and stress up until they die. This is the nature of existence. To avoid this truth and try to attain peace is wrong. Peace cannot be attained, it can only be lost. But even if we were able to lose our feelings of pain and stress, we would still have birth and death. This shows that getting rid of pain and stress is not enough to make life happy. Happiness requires more than just absence of pain.
At the moment of your death, you will either be born into another life or return to earth. If you are born again, then you will continue to experience happiness and sadness. Even after many hundreds of years, a Buddha is not completely free from suffering. There will always be people who suffer, who are unhappy, who are in pain. This is why Buddhists teach that it is essential to learn how to live wisely from one life to the next, by acting with compassion toward others.
While nirvana is available for anybody, only monks in most Buddhist groups strive for it. Instead, lay Buddhists (Buddhists who do not belong to a monastic group) seek for a better existence in the next world. They follow the Noble Eightfold Path and aim to acquire good Karma by assisting others. The path begins with wisdom (which means understanding the true nature of things) and ends with compassion (which means loving-kindness and not holding onto hatred toward others).
Nirvana can be reached through meditation. Meditation enables one to escape from the cycle of death and rebirth and reach eternal peace and happiness. In other words, meditation is the way to achieve nirvana.
Meditation takes many forms. Some people find quiet solitude helpful while others benefit from more active methods such as yoga or tai chi. No matter which method you choose, just make sure that you are being mindful during your practice.
Mindfulness is the ability to pay attention to what is happening in the present moment without judgment. It involves being aware of your thoughts and feelings but also keeping in mind that all experiences are transient and will pass away someday.
Through meditation, you learn to let go of your desires and clingings and focus on what is important in your life: friends and family, even if they are far away.
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