Question for Advanced Meditators: Cessation

[Water by the River]

48 minutes ago, An young being said:

Why does Wikipedia say cessation mean the stopping of the craving or desire? Is cessation same as ego dissolution or something else?

In Buddhism, nirodha, "cessation," "extinction," or "suppression,"[1] refers to the cessation or renouncing of craving and desire. It is the third of the Four Noble Truths, stating that suffering (dukkha) ceases when craving and desire are renounced.

Because the state of cessation (or the dissolution experience) tends to reduce grasping/attachment because it partly frees from the "grabbing/grasping" character of the egoic mindstream after having had that state/cessation for a number of times. In short, it makes life easier and suffering/grasping less. But it doesn't provide full liberation/the potential for Full Enlightenment. The ideal of early Buddhism was the escape to these states of cessation, the more permanent the better. Permanent Niroda = permanent dissolution = Nirvana = No more rebirth.

With Mahayana, the Buddhist Traditions broke through to true Nondual Enlightenment. Leos God-Realization, see the God-Realized approved Supreme Source for example, link above.

Sounds a bit different than cessation/dissolve/die and get off the wheel of Samsara/Niroda/bye bye forever? Oh yes...

Why? Because Absolute Truth is always right here. Never can not be here. Why shut it all down when IT is always right here? When the suffering/grasping clouds of the separate-self/ego are structurally dissolved (Full Enlightenment), and not just temporarily switched off via cessation, Infinite Nondual Impersonal Being replaces the separation/grasping/suffering of the ego in daily life. And the Sat-Chit-Ananda aspect of it (Bliss/Love/Compassion/Nondual Awakened Awareness) is off the charts. Trust the Salesman by the River. Caveat Emptor is good, but sometimes there is enough good Karma to just buy the right "stuff". by the River 

So no need for dissolution afterwards... Mahayana philosophy is a totally "different beast" than early Buddhism/Hinayana. For example: https://www.psychedelicsangha.org/paisley-gate/2019/5/8/the-supreme-array-scripture-a-psychedelic-stra-for-buddhist-psychonauts-pp3zz#:~:text=Composed sometime around the third,cosmic vision of the universe. In Mahayana, Enlightenment is not the end/extinction/cessation/dissolution, but the beginning of the caterpillar having turned butterfly, expressing its enlightened intention not only in this life/bardo, but also in future ones. The whole Reality then goes like "Oh nice, one more for the team"... A whole chain of being of enlightened beings (human, alien, ET, Buddha-Field Creator/Sustainer/and so on) fits into the manifested Infinity of Infinities of Infinite Being. See the WbtR 2x2 matrix of enlightened & or merely awakened Aliens & Humans.

Its a totally different and much more positive worldview than Early Buddhism, which was more like "die, cease and get off the wheel". Would be a lot of effort on creating humans via an evolution of billion of years and then getting rid of the gig asap., don't you think?

Chris Bache in "LSD and the Mind of the Universe: Diamonds from Heaven" called the visions he had been shown of the future evolution of humanity a growth towards what he called the Diamond Soul, a magnificent destiny for the species. And since even that isn't the end, its Infinity up the Chain of Being... well, mucho adventure ahead.  So it seems that at some point, Leo gets to become his n+1 AWAKE Alien permanently. Hopefully, he doesn't take to many detours on the way there. Being reborn automatically as n+1 "Infinitely consciousness" awakened Alien is not guaranteed,  but earned and developed towards. Soul, Karma and such. Not that the suicides influenced by certain inadvertantly & flippantly irresponsible teachings/statements say "hello" in a less than amused way after he has left his current bodily-vehicle.

So in summary, early Buddhism doctrine just didn't reach Full Enlightenment. At least in its doctrine/philosophy. It reached causal states, but not truly impersonal nondual/fully enlightened ones. There have been Nondual Realizers for sure between "the Buddha" (aka time the doctrine was formed)" and the Nondual Breakthrough towards Infinite Reality/ Infinite Being that happened first with Nagarjuna and his Middle Way/Madhyamaka  doctrine/philosophy, but the doctrinal break occured with Nagarjuna towards Middle Way, and later Yogachara/(Infinite) Consciousness only.

Selling non-extinction of the River by the River for the River

by

The River

[Ishanga]

19 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

Because the state of cessation (or the dissolution experience) tends to reduce grasping/attachment because it partly frees from the "grabbing/grasping" character of the egoic mindstream after having had that state/cessation for a number of times. In short, it makes life easier and suffering/grasping less. But it doesn't provide full liberation/the potential for Full Enlightenment. The ideal of early Buddhism was the escape to these states of cessation, the more permanent the better. Permanent Niroda = permanent dissolution = Nirvana = No more rebirth.

 

Selling non-extinction of the River by the River for the River

by

The River

In Isha Yoga, Sadhguru talks about this as a progression of sorts as well, first bring Yourself to Ease, as You said (Less Suffering/Grasping), its about Inner Life Experience becoming more Peaceful naturally, there is no Resistance to What Is, when that comes to You in Experience then Your at Ease, same with Free Will coming about via the Ability to Respond to Life Situations, they connect these too, Acceptance and Response Ability, together they allow Free Will to come into Your Capability, How do I want to Be within Myself!! Once that is set, then Enlightenment is not far away!!

[Water by the River]

7 hours ago, Davino said:

Could you offer me some guidance regarding meditation? As well as some of your own personal experience and milestones in your path.

I've tried many here and there but for the moment the expansive and present ones seem to work best for me. I particularly enjoy the non localisation that meditation can give. Very peaceful. My objective for meditation is increasing my Awareness of the present moment. I'm a seasoned psychonaut so I'm not interested in the peaks of meditation but on a practice that translates into ordinary life and that can be even sustained in the midst of it.

Here you can find my summary of Pointing out the Great Way/Mahamudra, based on how it developed for me, written in my own words based on my experiences/milestones:

Which funnily developed pretty much like the book describes. So it was fascinating for me that the experiences developed very much in line how they were described for centuries in the Tibetan Mahamudra-tradition, delivered by a book of several hundred pages of descriptions. Talking about a sophisticated complex meditation system....

One of the main milestones, after which it continued developing, was the blue marked part below. That happened after around 10 years of meditation (which was not as efficient as possible (quite inefficient actually, that is why it took so long), since I didn't get a lot of stuff right straight away, and had no direct teacher). That milestone is where the awakened and nondual states starts to develop after some time. Afterwards I was hooked, and used all the other tools (like the always here timeless nature of the mind, its infinite and boundless and nondual nature, and finally its impersonal nature in stage 4) for developing Nonduality in Yoga of One Taste (stage 3 Mahamudra), and developing these nondual awakened states towards the pure impersonal and totally unseparated nature, conforming to the Reality of the enlightened Mindstream (stage 4, Yoga of Nonmeditation). Then Enlightenment can happen, but can't be forced. Enlightenment is an accident. Yoga of Nonmeditation makes very (!) accident-prone.

On the path are I would say between 5-10 major cul-de-sacs or mistakes one can make, which can either be overcome with applying the right technique of Mahamudra/Dzogchen (or non-concentrative meditation), or with hardcore concentrative meditation (which works without all this sophisticated technique, but is as hard to pull off (discipline, hours on the pillow needed) as we probably all know. That is why we see more "Natural/ or enlightened-by-accident ones" and hardcore concentration meditation enlightened ones (Ingram, Yang, Burbea and the Theravada & Zen crew), but very few Mahamudra/Dzogchen enlightened ones, since that sophisticated system has not been planted fully in the West. I see its potential, and consider that (combined with psychedelics) as the future, since few people can actually pull of the natural style (by definition), or the hardcore concentrative meditation style. So lets see...

 

On 13.5.2023 at 8:49 PM, Water by the River said:

Skill of Recognition: (1. Yoga of Mahamudra system)

• Now it gets interesting. That was the decisivepoint for me once I understood that, and implemented it. Afterwards, it started to get nondual pretty soon...
• If you look HOW the thoughts emerge,
  • (1) out of what they emerge,
  • (2) what they are,
  • (3) in what they move
  • (4) into what they disappear
    • ALL of that (1)(2)(3)(4) must be present. Thoughts DO appear. From "something". Stay in "something". Consisting of "something"
    • All of that is Emptiness, or Consciousness, or Nothingness. Thoughts are made of "that","move in that", "dissolve into that".
    • and you will never SEE that, or can say what it is. Nothing. But not a blank nothing. An aware Nothing. Actually the essence of all world-appearances, but that comes later, when it gets nondual, at the Yoga of One Taste.
• What happens if you investigate into emerging thoughts this way, is that they get FASTER. VERY FAST. Like 20-30 emergent thoughts/feeling arisings per second, most of them rudimentary. The mind does this to keep the illusion going. To make it too fast for you. But at some point, you learned to get that fast also...
  • Basically, looking into a thought, one sees its Emptiness/Nothingness (one doesn't find the thought, it evaporates). It is cut off. Dzogchen calls this cutting off "Trekchö".
  • Daniel Brown called this stage a "High Speed Search Task into the unfindability of the nature of thoughts". A High Speed Search task into their emptiness, into their nature as consciousness, as Nothingness.
  • So the emerging gets fast, very fast. Daniel Ingram also mentions that. But at some point, with enough practice and familiarity, YOU get faster. You spot and cut off every very fast, subtle, fragmentary thought arising. None of them "grips" you anymore, since you have seen them all, and their structure. Just thoughts arising very fast.
    • You don't control which thoughts arise. Depended origination, they are just emerging by themselves.
    • You can focus on just their arising (of thoughts), just their staying, just their going away.
    • At some point, they just emerge, looking into their nature is automatic, and they immediately dissolve. No duration. Just emergence, and poof gone. And when you are fast enough, you get a continuance of staying mindful. When that happens its pretty clear what happened. Your attention got so fast that you can stay mindful even through the high-speed thought emergence.
    • At the end, they come very fast, they don't get "elaborated out". Thinking, or elaborating the thoughts out, is slower than their emergence. They emerge already fully complete with their content, and then slowly get "talked/elaborated" in your mind. 
      • Natural reaction: So WHO the f*** am I (pardon my french) when I
        • don't control what thoughts emerge and
        • if they appear fully with their content in a fraction of a second, and get elaborated later in a hypnotic show over several second?
        • good question... to be answered later.
• Outcome is: 
  • You know the nature of every possible thought (Consciousness-Emptiness-Nothingness), of the whole mental-continuum of thoughts, all that there can be. Their nature.
  • you can cut off or transcend/just watch your normal mindstream in most daily situations without getting caught up/hypnotized by it, which already here leads to a lot of bliss. Not sufficient bliss to get ones separate self completely handled, but already quite wonderful. That is the start of real freedom.
  • You know how your mindstream hypnotizes you, and gets faster when you actually look into each thought arising and its nature.
  • At some point you get fast enough to cut off every arising, or let it elaborate in a controlled aka mindful way.

 

And if that is not enough, here is some more of the Sales-by-the-River:

https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?&q=Pointing out the Great Way &author=Water by the River

 

Bon Voyage, good luck, and if you have further questions let me know.

[What Am I]

@Water by the River wow, very impressive encyclopedic knowledge of the subject. Thanks so much for taking the time to write it up.

Any recommendations on quality resources to become better acquainted with relevant Buddhist and Hindu teachings? My own knowledge is more on the elementary side in comparison, and I could see a deeper understanding having benefits while I try to navigate the spiritual landscape.

[An young being]

54 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

Its a totally different and much more positive worldview than Early Buddhism, which was more like "die, cease and get off the wheel". Would be a lot of effort on creating humans via an evolution of billion of years and then getting rid of the gig asap., don't you think?

Great, thank you for the detailed explanation!

[bambi]

28 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

Here you can find my summary of Pointing out the Great Way/Mahamudra, based on how it developed for me, written in my own words based on my experiences/milestones:

Which funnily developed pretty much like the book describes. So it was fascinating for me that the experiences developed very much in line how they were described for centuries in the Tibetan Mahamudra-tradition, delivered by a book of several hundred pages of descriptions. Talking about a sophisticated complex meditation system....

One of the main milestones, after which it continued developing, was the blue marked part below. That happened after around 10 years of meditation (which was not as efficient as possible (quite inefficient actually, that is why it took so long), since I didn't get a lot of stuff right straight away, and had no direct teacher). That milestone is where the awakened and nondual states starts to develop after some time. Afterwards I was hooked, and used all the other tools (like the always here timeless nature of the mind, its infinite and boundless and nondual nature, and finally its impersonal nature in stage 4) for developing Nonduality in Yoga of One Taste (stage 3 Mahamudra), and developing these nondual awakened states towards the pure impersonal and totally unseparated nature, conforming to the Reality of the enlightened Mindstream (stage 4, Yoga of Nonmeditation). Then Enlightenment can happen, but can't be forced. Enlightenment is an accident. Yoga of Nonmeditation makes very (!) accident-prone.

On the path are I would say between 5-10 major cul-de-sacs or mistakes one can make, which can either be overcome with applying the right technique of Mahamudra/Dzogchen (or non-concentrative meditation), or with hardcore concentrative meditation (which works without all this sophisticated technique, but is as hard to pull off (discipline, hours on the pillow needed) as we probably all know. That is why we see more "Natural/ or enlightened-by-accident ones" and hardcore concentration meditation enlightened ones (Ingram, Yang, Burbea and the Theravada & Zen crew), but very few Mahamudra/Dzogchen enlightened ones, since that sophisticated system has not been planted fully in the West. I see its potential, and consider that (combined with psychedelics) as the future, since few people can actually pull of the natural style (by definition), or the hardcore concentrative meditation style. So lets see...

 

 

And if that is not enough, here is some more of the Sales-by-the-River:

https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?&q=Pointing out the Great Way &author=Water by the River

 

Bon Voyage, good luck, and if you have further questions let me know.

So did you personal have cessation experience syet?

Sorry couldnt decipher from the post 

[Water by the River]

28 minutes ago, bambi said:

So did you personal have cessation experience syet?

Niroda-style cessations going blank from concentrative meditation in the waking state and then "rebooting": No. I didn't push the concentrative path/Jhanas path much, Mahamudra & Dzogchen -practice is different. On that path, these states don't need to happen, nor are they considered that important as in Theravada. I have experienced the causal states from the states & transitions during the sleep cycle. "Seeing" the rotation of waking/sleep/dream, the causal states that can show along that rotation, lucid dreams, and also the "Reality" of deep sleep.

Which is exactly what is supposed to happen according to the tradition when Awareness has become strong/trained enough in the waking state that it continues in some forms into the sleep-phase, and stays during the state-changes in sleep/dream/waking which then "roll by" "before" ones True eternal unchanging Infinite Being.

As a sidenote: In the Mahamudra-system there is the so called Nondissolution-Experience that opens up the boundless and eternal/timeless/always here/impersonal nature of Infinite Mind/Infinite Being and how everything emerges from "THAT", including all thought/feeling-arisings, which arise in an impersonal clockwork-like process ripening/arising from the groundless ground of Being, emerging fully formed and then being elaborated as a second step so slowly that one wonders at some point how that could have hypnotized earlier. And how time is constructed. Which I experienced as predicted in this system at the point where its supposed to happen. Which is a very valueable experience, since it shows how the separate-self, time, basically everything is constructed and emerging. Not only when "rebooting" from cessation, but in real/daily life. And that then gets stabilized with further practice. 

Brown, PotgW: "Though comparable in profundity to the Theravada dissolution experience, the Mahayana experience of nondissolution or unelaboration is very different, both experientially and philosophically, which is why the commentators are careful to refute the nihilistic dissolution position"

"Once the practitioner gets some sense of emptiness (mere appearance,WbtR) pervading the interconnectedness of all times and realms, it becomes easier to persist with a continuous focus on emptiness when leaving the samadhi state and reentering ordinary daily experience.'"

I assume that if I trained for some time in hardcore concentrative meditation that cessation-states become accessible in the waking state. I know the techniques that have to be practiced to achieve that. Yet, there seems to be a genetic/karmic/whatever factor if the long form of cessations is accessible (Niroda) or not. But I don't need these states since I have accessed the experiences/states and insights they give from other ways, as described above. And I don't need concentrative meditation to keep/access Infinite Nondual Being. Jhanas 1-7 are given anyways at that point, since its hard to "get" Infinite Space or Infinite Consciousness or Nothingness when that is already the case before any meditation during daily life. Jhana 8 (neither perception nor non-perception) / 9 (Cessation and/or Niroda) need "induction" via concentrative meditation.

 

 

[Breakingthewall]

The psychedelic of cessation is 5meo dmt, at least for me. I don't understand why people talk about realizations of being God, my experience is always the same: the experience ceases, complete reality is a black screen. there is no self, no observer, just a black screen. If this stays here and the self returns, it is extremely disturbing, approaching the horrible.

if black screen opens then it happens. Your being opens, and the bottomless manifests itself. If you do this many times, your mind gets used to it and it begins to be something normal, very close to the surface, then with a while of meditation the cessation and opening can occur. It's different than with 5meo, it's more like looking directly into the inherent emptiness of reality, and realizing that the experience is nothing, all forms are apparent, then it stops. There is no time nor is there reality, there is void.

Once again it can be quite horrible, until the void opens and what you are manifests, the immutable that always is. It is such a different frequency of existence that it is obvious why it is so difficult to achieve. The mind must be totally empty of everything that defines it, of time, of being "something", of cause and effect, of any identification. It is a subtle art, any grip make a distortion that blurs everything and you are again in the timeline 

 

Edited July 8 by Breakingthewall

[What Am I]

@Breakingthewall that's true, your description of a 5meo breakthrough does sound similar to classic cessation. Very interesting.

Edited July 8 by What Am I

[Water by the River]

14 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

The psychedelic of cessation is 5meo dmt, at least for me. I don't understand why people talk about realizations of being God, my experience is always the same: the experience ceases, complete reality is a black screen. there is no self, no observer, just a black screen. If this stays here and the self returns, it is extremely disturbing, approaching the horrible.

if black screen opens then it happens. Your being opens, and the bottomless manifests itself. If you do this many times, your mind gets used to it and it begins to be something normal, very close to the surface, then with a while of meditation the cessation and opening can occur. It's different than with 5meo, it's more like looking directly into the inherent emptiness of reality, and realizing that the experience is nothing, all forms are apparent, then it stops. There is no time nor is there reality, there is void.

Once again it can be quite horrible, until the void opens and what you are manifests, the immutable that always is. It is such a different frequency of existence that it is obvious why it is so difficult to achieve. The mind must be totally empty of everything that defines it, of time, of being "something", of cause and effect, of any identification. It is a subtle art, any grip make a distortion that blurs everything and you are again in the timeline 

 

Just as a remark: Classic Cessation/Niroda is without any(!) awareness left. None at all. It is like a film where pictures of the movie are missing. Memory/Awareness comes back only later when booting up. Similiar to the blackout of deep sleep when there is no continuity of Awareness.

The interesting/useful aspect of cessation for further transcendence/practice is that one watches how the visual field/separate-self "reboots". That is very similiar when going through these states in the sleep-cycle when some kind awareness kicks in fast or stays throughout these causal/dream states, and the appearance of the dream and/or waking state occurs coming out from such a causal state. Normally, the booting-up process when waking (or winding down when falling asleep) is so fast that no memory and/or awareness of that remains (or is being imagined : ). Because that would reveal drastically how the dream is constructed, how the world-illusion works, and what the Infinite Screen of it all truly is. And Spirit doesn't want the show to end (yet)  

But there are causal states with remaining awareness. The psychedelic state you describe, the Infinite Darkness suffused with light of the Neurologists NDE I mentioned, some states of when bringing Awareness into the sleep cycle (as described above). All quite useful for giving indiciations how it all really works...

So the question is always: How useful are these causal states (of certain types) in bringing insight into what Reality/True Being is, and how the illusion/manifest world is being constructed/imagined/manifested "on the fly".

 

[Breakingthewall]

17 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

the question is always: How useful are these causal states (of certain types) in bringing insight into what Reality/True Being is, and how the illusion/manifest world is being constructed/imagined/manifested "on the fly".

  What I seek over all is to perceive what reality is, not how it happens, since the perception of how seems to me to introduce distortion and is also useless, since the experience is happening, so it's happening and that's it.

The thing is open the now, make it totally transparent, then the reality perceives itself and the experience appears like secondary, less relevant. Let's say that the experience is something that emanates from bottomless reality by the very fact that it has no bottom, which is why it cannot not flow, and experience is this flow.

where it goes? Why is it exactly like that? I don't think this can be known, since if there are no limits, this is just one possibility among infinite possibilities, it is irrelevant, only the substance is relevant. But I don't have those perception stable, just some moments. Not only with psychedelic, also sober, but short time, then, sure more can be perceived 

Btw, I bought the book 10 min in eternity that you suggested, let's see how is it

Edited July 8 by Breakingthewall

[An young being]

20 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

Just as a remark: Classic Cessation/Niroda is without any(!) awareness left. None at all.

What do you mean by awareness here? 

[What Am I]

29 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

Just as a remark: Classic Cessation/Niroda is without any(!) awareness left. None at all. It is like a film where pictures of the movie are missing. Memory/Awareness comes back only later when booting up. Similiar to the blackout of deep sleep when there is no continuity of Awareness.

Wow, so if this is the case, I guess I have had a cessation once when I was on 4g of shrooms and smoked some weed. This was way back in high school. I was tripping out of my mind, hit the weed, and then there was a true loss of literally all things, with no awareness of anything whatsoever during the loss. I'd call it the void, but I wasn't there to experience it and I have no memories of it. As I started to come back, it was as if I was forming from a state of knowing absolutely nothing about anything. Reality was ever so slowly shifting into place. First I remembered that I exist, and then that I'm on earth, then that I'm human, etc. It happened in very slow stages. It was very unique, and I've never had a repeat experience quite like it.

Edited July 8 by What Am I

[Purple Man]

Some things that are being discussed here sound similar, and probably give an explanation, to the most bizarre moment in my life, when I woke up in a normal day (no drugs, no meditation involved) and not just the particulars of my human avatar were cut off from the "film", but also the understanding of the very notion of existing, of being a manifested form. I think I remember having the thought "What is "being alive?"". To say it was terrifying is an understatement, since it happened in an epoch in my life much later than my very early  spiritual experiences that put me in the "spiritual line", but before totally devoting to find out who I was. 

[An young being]

22 minutes ago, What Am I said:

there was a true loss of literally all things, with no awareness of anything whatsoever during the loss. I'd call it the void, but I wasn't there to experience it and I have no memories of it.

If you don't have any memory of being not aware, what else made you think that there was no awareness? Was it similar to waking up after sleep? Or a black picture during the experience is registered in your memory?

[What Am I]

13 minutes ago, An young being said:

If you don't have any memory of being not aware, what else made you think that there was no awareness? Was it similar to waking up after sleep? Or a black picture during the experience is registered in your memory?

The only indication I had that there was a loss of time and experience was that I suddenly found myself in that reboot state, with no memory whatsoever of what directly led up to it. I don't remember falling into a profound state after hitting the weed or anything. And like I mentioned above, there was a long stretch where that reboot state was occurring that I was slowly forming back into a recognizable reality.

I should also mention that I was kicked into a way higher gear of tripping upon my return. Absolute madness. And additionally, I was ignorant of all spiritual matters at the time, so I truly had no idea what had just happened to me. It could very well be the opening of the door that allowed me to get to where I'm at now, which I admit isn't a significant level of mastery, but it's at least something.

Edited July 8 by What Am I

[An young being]

5 minutes ago, What Am I said:

The only indication I had that there was a loss of time and experience was that I suddenly found myself in that reboot state, with no memory whatsoever of what directly led up to it. I don't remember falling into a profound state after hitting the weed or anything. And like I mentioned above, there was a long stretch where that reboot state was occurring that I was slowly forming back into a recognizable reality.

Looks like you have somehow switched off recording of the memories and also connections to other memories in waking state! The loss of time might be due to a cue from your environment or body clock. Glad that it led you towards Spirituality!

[Water by the River]

1 hour ago, An young being said:

What do you mean by awareness here? 

Imprecise wording from my side. The potential for Awareness is there throughout. But if nothing appears there is no self-consciousness and no consciousness OF. Yet, Infinite Being can't "go" anywhere, and is always the case.

https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?&q=Water Pistol&author=Water by the River

 

[Water by the River]

1 hour ago, What Am I said:

Wow, so if this is the case, I guess I have had a cessation once when I was on 4g of shrooms and smoked some weed. This was way back in high school. I was tripping out of my mind, hit the weed, and then there was a true loss of literally all things, with no awareness of anything whatsoever during the loss. I'd call it the void, but I wasn't there to experience it and I have no memories of it. As I started to come back, it was as if I was forming from a state of knowing absolutely nothing about anything. Reality was ever so slowly shifting into place. First I remembered that I exist, and then that I'm on earth, then that I'm human, etc. It happened in very slow stages. It was very unique, and I've never had a repeat experience quite like it.

An interesting experience for sure, especially if it opened the interest for these topics.

44 minutes ago, What Am I said:

And additionally, I was ignorant of all spiritual matters at the time, so I truly had no idea what had just happened to me. It could very well be the opening of the door that allowed me to get to where I'm at now, which I admit isn't a significant level of mastery, but it's at least something.

Classic Cessation from meditation needs a lot of training before (which has its own benefits, effects and consequences), and has a characteristic entry, exit and afterglow/effects.

There are many ways to experience what Wilber calls subtle and causal states. Each with a certain surface structure, each with the potential to lead to certain similiar deep structure insights.

 

 

[Breakingthewall]

33 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

Classic Cessation

Then classic cessation is a restart, the cessation time is irrelevant, it can be a millisecond or an hour, which for you would be the same. 

but what do you get with the reboot? understand how this reality is formed? This can be a misleading perception, like any other. It is understanding, understanding is within reality and is irrelevant, it is an illusion