What is cessation?

[fictional_character]

I keep hearing this word in Leo's videos.

I believe it refers to a experience in wich internal dialogue, imagery, memories, self and body sensations dissapear. In that case ¿has anyone on this forum have had this experience?

[Cathal]

experientially it's a deep deep silence that only you can feel, it's a state of pure consciousness or flow that is unaffected by memory/karma

[Vincent S]

Its not easy to put it in to words. Will try to
It can only be experienced. And yet when it is experienced. There is no "you" who is experiencing it. Its Everything and Nothing at the same time. Its before any layers, definitions, identities, thoughts, form, feelings, perceptions and so on. You see everything is completely One. But only separated with a thin layer/shell/husk/vessel. Every layer is Hollow. You are all of it at the same time.

Kind of like if  you were a soap bubble. And you "popped". And everything separating the inside of the bubble with the outside: Now is completely Unified/Gone/One. There never were any distinctions between them. And noone to come back to tell the story. Noone to remember what was or has been. And yet, paradoxically you do live to tell the story. But you tell it to noone, but yourself.

Edited February 20, 2022 by Vincent S

[Carl-Richard]

Everything disappears.

[BipolarGrowth]

Put simply, there is no experience at all. If people are describing something as being experiential, it’s not cessation. 

Fruition and nirodha samapatti are the two types of cessation typically discussed. They are only different in how one reaches the “state” of cessation. Fruition is usually spontaneous, and nirodha samapatti is when cessation is accessed through progressing through the first formed jhanas and four formless jhanas in order which can result in cessation. Nirodha samapatti is typically only seen as being done by people who have experienced at a minimum of three cessations but, in most cases, many more than that. 

From Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha by Daniel Ingram: 

“Fruition (phala in Pali) is the fruit of all the meditator’s hard work, the first attainment of ultimate reality, emptiness, nirvana, nibbana, ultimate potential, or whatever extrapolative and relatively inaccurate name you wish to call something utterly non-sensate. In this non-state, there is absolutely no time, no space, no reference point, no experience, no mind, no consciousness, no awareness, no background, no foreground, no nothingness, no somethingness, no body, no this, no that, no unity, no duality, and no anything else. “Reality” stops cold and then reappears.

Thus, this is impossible to comprehend, as it goes completely and utterly beyond the rational mind and the universe. In “external time” (if we were observing the meditator) this stage typically lasts only an instant (though the question of “duration” will be addressed below). It is like an utter discontinuity of the space-time continuum with nothing in the unfindable gap, exactly like what happens when someone edits out a frame or sequence of frames of a movie. It is not that you see a blank screen for a while where they edited the frames out, instead that part of the movie is just not there.

The initial aftershocks following the first time this happens at stream entry (or the first time it happens at the beginning of a higher level of awakening), however, can go on for days, and may be mild or spectacular, fun or unsettling, or some mixture of these. There are times when it is fun to show off, and this is one of those times. (Particularly mature? No. Honest? Yes.) Aftershocks I have noticed after paths include but are not limited to:

• the brief visceral feeling that sensory reality is so intense that the nerves in the forehead and upper neck may not be able to handle the strain;

• the feeling that new brain pathways are now being infused with vibrant life they lacked before, as if new nerve channels are tingling into life;

• the feeling that we have become diffused into the atmosphere without a center, purpose, function, sense of direction, or even will;

• a feeling of joy and gratitude bursting through our being beyond our usual sense of appreciation;

• the sense of having at long last discovered what we most needed;

• the profound sense of coming home, a quiet awe like the stillness after a great storm;

• rapturous transcendent highs that make anything that happened after the A&P seem like dry toast; 

• the profound feeling that something pressed a reset button on reality, causing it to reboot as new, clean, clear, bright, pristine, and fresh.

All that said, there are those who won’t recognize it, particularly those who chance upon it outside of a meditative tradition that can recognize it. There will also be those for whom it happens within the context of their practice tradition, who can recognize it, but who fail to identify it as being what it is. Sometimes the afterglow is not so spectacular, though for most the series of insights, connections, syntheses, and the like that burgeon forth is impressive. Others will just go on practicing, not realizing what has just happened.

Just after the attainment of a path, particularly the first path, is a time when formal resolutions have an outrageous amount of power. The Buddha said that the greatest of all powers is to understand and then teach the dharma, meaning to attain full realization, however you define it, and then to help others do the same. I had been advised to use this unique period in my practice well, and I resolved to attain this awakening for the benefit of all beings as quickly as was reasonably possible. Despite all the complex consequences of having done so, I do not regret my decision in the least and highly recommend that you do the same.

On subsequent passes through Fruition of that path, the mind tends to be refreshed, bright, quiet, and clear for a while, and milder forms of the above-listed phenomena may occur. The afterglow can seem to clear out all the junk for a little while. There is a nice bliss wave that tends to follow and may take a few seconds to develop. You can take that bliss wave as a shamatha object if you wish and intensify it, as a possible option. If you have not learned the concentration states yet, doing so in the afterglow of a Fruition can make them much easier to attain and master. The breath may change on the reappearance of “reality”, being a bit deeper, slower, easier, and more fluid. The total synchrony of the sense sphere that leads to a Fruition shows a fun physiological fact: Fruitions always occur at the end of the out-breath, and reality always reappears at the beginning of the in-breath, which is one of the cool reasons that finding the end of the out-breath can be powerful practice.

For those who really want to get to know something interesting, notice exactly how reality reappears or re-manifests, and how the mental processes resume at an extremely fine level. This is best done by intending to notice it some time before the Fruition happens. Most people who have a Fruition are so relieved by it that the relief is most of what they notice, but those who can pay attention to more detail than that and do this well are afforded a rare treat—getting to see the processes that make up the functioning of our brains as they come online and orient to the surroundings, as well as to see the restarting of the sense of the illusion of duality, and exactly what makes that up in that powerfully clear attentional mode. It is fascinating stuff, and can lead to some serious clues about essential parts of the puzzle that help later. I recommend doing this again and again, as it generally takes going through it a good number of times to see what is really happening clearly and notice the assumptions we make about those processes and how they relate to things like “me”, “time”, “space”, and the like.

Please note that there are at least two uses for the term nibbana, one of which is Fruition. The reference for this comes from the Abhidhamma or higher (abhi) dhamma (“teachings”, in this context), accessible in English as A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma, by Narada Maha Thera, available free online and in print form. This is the standard Theravada literature on Buddhist mind-moment (Pali javana) theory and many other technical points, and it details that there will be three or four pulses of phenomena (typically called javanas, or “mind-moments”, “impulsions”, or dhammas) which, when they occur the first time, are Conformity, Path, and Change of Lineage, and then the mind will turn to nibbana and then the stream of ordinary sensate awareness will resume.

[See A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma, III §8 (12), p. 124, for more.]

For those who actually do check out the Abhidhamma, which is a very good idea if you want to give more context, background, and support to your practice, you will notice that some of the biology seems pretty archaic, so don’t get derailed by that. The meditation theory remains quite helpful. Those who sometimes mention online and in person to me that they think that Mahasi Sayadaw or I made up this stuff about the ñanas, jhanas, stages, or other Buddhist theory, should read the Abhidhamma, or get your practice to the point where you yourself can perceive directly what these early followers of the Buddha perceived, and you will be satisfied by direct knowledge. At that point, the texts those followers wrote might make a lot more sense to you, and you may gain even more benefits by appreciating them based on your own practice instead of dismissing them based on ignorance.”

 

Also from MCTB:

“Then there is an attainment called “the cessation of perception and feeling” (Pali: nirodha samapatti, henceforth NS, or simply nirodha in my general way of speaking) that is hard to classify. The word “nirodha” (meaning “cessation”) is also sometimes used without the qualifier “samapatti” to refer to Fruition, so be careful to keep your terms straight when reading the old texts or speaking with others about these subjects. I always mean the cessation of perception and feeling when I use the word “nirodha”, but others often do not and may mean Fruition.

This is the highest of the temporary attainments. It is discussed in multiple places, including sutta 44, “The Shorter Series of Questions and Answers”, from The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, in a talk given by a female arahant named Dhammadinna, and Path to Deliverance by Nyanatiloka, which draws from that fine text. You can also find it in commentaries, such as the Visuddhimagga, XXIII, 16, as well as in the last few pages of the Vimuttimagga. By the commentarial criteria at least, it can be attained only by anagamis and arahants who also have mastery of the formless jhanas. This attainment cannot be said to be either a state or not a state, nor can it be said to be strictly a concentration or an insight attainment, as it is attained by a fusion of both shamatha and vipassana and since it lacks a sensate basis for analysis, meaning there is no experience at all that can be analyzed, as perception and feeling have stopped.

We attain NS by fusing insight and concentration practices in a gentle way that is much less precise than if we wanted to attain Fruition, as well as much less concentration-heavy than we would use if we were doing pure jhana practice. I find it slightly easier to attain NS when reclining, but the first time I attained it I was sitting. We rise through the shamatha jhanas in a low-key way with some light awareness of their true nature (the three characteristics), and then enter the eighth jhana (Neither Perception Nor Non-Perception), and then emerge from that state to that magical post-eighth junction point from which we might also attain the pure abodes. Technically, in the old texts we find that there are a few other points of set-up that we might do before this, including to make sure that we are not going to die before the state ends, resolving to wake up if summoned by the sangha, and some other minor details, but I have not found them necessary.

Sometime shortly thereafter, and without warning or a very recent premeditation, we may suddenly enter the cessation of perception and feeling, or we might not, depending on whether we have met the entrance criteria and are not inclining to anything else. Please note that previous interest in attaining this during the preceding days or weeks tends to increase the chances of this attainment occurring, as do resolutions just before starting the ascent from the first through the eighth jhanas. As we get better at attaining this, we can slip in the inclination (resolution, intention) to attain it after emerging from the eighth jhana and then forget about it before dropping in. There is really nothing that can be said about this attainment, except for things that relate to entering, exiting, and the consequences of the attainment, all of which are unique to nirodha.

The texts rightly say that, upon entering nirodha, verbal formations cease first, then physical sensations, then the whole of mental functioning ceases when the attainment is fully entered. This is traditionally explained as correlating to the first jhana, the fourth jhana, and then the entrance into nirodha, respectively. However, you may notice that in the three moments before cessation of perception sets in (during the complete power failure–like entrance) verbal formations, bodily formations, and mental formations cease in that order also in three consecutive and distinct moments, with the whole entrance taking about one-third of a second, like someone threw the master dimmer/power switch on sensate reality all the way down and the whole thing just shut off. The texts may have a double meaning, or may have been misinterpreted by scholars who had never themselves attained nirodha samapatti. I say this because it is still typical for bodily and verbal formations to arise between the eighth jhana and the entrance to NS, and thus the traditional interpretation does not hold up in experience.

The texts also say that this attainment may last seven days or even longer (some say up to ten days), but I don’t personally know of anyone who has admitted to this occurring in their experience. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, but it would probably require a long and sustained retreat beforehand to generate the necessary stability and stillness of mind. The duration of such attainments will be related directly to our concentration abilities, and these are very dependent upon practice conditions and how much concentration abilities have recently been exercised.

Please also note that, like Fruition, there is no experience at all during NS. There is no time, no space, no something, no nothing, not anything at all. Just as a desktop computer shuts down totally when you press the power button, so too with anything to do with experience in NS. I have friends who have talked about something they got into where they could still feel time passing, and that is definitely not it. NS is like the ultimate rest for the mind, something far beyond even deep sleep, as even a few seconds in it leaves one with a massive feeling of having gone extremely deep in a way nothing else can match.

Unlike Fruition, we exit this attainment in the reverse way we came in, with mental formations arising first, quickly followed by physical and then verbal formations in the characteristic analogue way of the entrance and with the same timing, like throwing on a big dimmer switch in about one-third of a second. After leaving this attainment, the mind tends to be a remarkable mixture of deeply peaceful while very clear, and our body tends to be very relaxed. The longer the attainment lasted, the stronger and longer-lingering this effect will be.

I have found it to be by far the most impressive, long-lasting, and heavy of the afterglows of the various attainments, and have noted feeling the effects of it for up to about twenty-four hours afterwards. From my point of view, the whole point of attaining to NS (other than learning the level of control needed to attain to it, which has it own rewards for other avenues of spiritual development—and for just showing off and proving you can do it—is the amazing afterglow. Thus, I would not recommend attaining this immediately before entering into situations that require quick decisions or actions, such as driving in complex traffic. The texts say that we incline to solitude or quiet after attaining this state, and in general I agree. Loud noises and jarring situations can be particularly so after NS. Its afterglow is very conducive to deep relaxation, deep practice, deep insight, and deep magickal workings—that is if you can get up the emotional energy to care at all about those workings in the face of that stunningly chill afterglow. I talk about the powers later so, if the topic of magick bothers you, just pretend I didn’t write that. Say, “La, la, la, la, la …” in your head to clear the memory of it, or whatever.

While I am nervous about the current trend to use meditation to create more productive, compliant, and docile worker-bees, I must admit that studying for my emergency medicine board exam one day in the afterglow of NS was like a dream come true. I could steadily plow through hundreds of pages for hours and hours with vastly less mental fatigue than I would have had in any other state I am familiar with.

Aside from nirodha samapatti’s importance due to being included in some system’s criteria for various stages of awakening, it is worth mentioning this attainment because it is found today by real, living practitioners but has often been relegated to the realm of myth and legend or has been ignored or even forgotten entirely. It is not that nirodha samapatti is necessary, but it is a good and useful thing to be able to attain. In fact, I have not yet spoken with anyone who had attained it who didn’t consider it the absolute King Daddy of meditation attainments other than arahantship, as the depth of its afterglow never fails to impress and amaze. Hopefully, mentioning it will raise the standard to which people feel they can reasonably aspire, which is basically the whole goal of this book.

One more little morsel for you brave adventurers … I have noticed that the easiest time to attain NS is usually a few weeks after attaining a path, when the vipassana jhana aspect of the progress of insight is becoming clear and a nice degree of mastery has been attained in that Review phase. However, it has this nice/nasty habit of helping to precipitate a new progress cycle, as the level of clarity gained in its wake is impressive, and clarity furthers insight. Thus, we may go from the best highs of a Review phase and NS’s glorious afterglow to the third ñana, A&P, and the Dark Night quickly. In fact, this seems to be a very natural part of many cycles of anagamis who also know the eight jhanas and how to ride the line between concentration and insight practices. One word of warning: NS’s afterglow is so extreme that it is easy to imagine that one has attained some new level of awakening, as the mind feels very, very different after NS has occurred, and residual hindrances and negative mind states may be very far away. Wait at least a few days after any dive into NS to see how those changes hold up in the face of the world before starting to draw any conclusions.

I must say, there is something truly fairy-tale wonderful about NS. That you can pick up a book from about 2,000 years ago that gives complex instructions like some weird recipe for something you can do with your brain that you would have otherwise been extremely unlikely to know as even being possible, and that you can follow those instructions and they can actually work, blew my doors off the first time I did it. This stuff is just amazing! Yay, dharma!“

[softlyblossoming]

@catcat69123 @Vincent S @Carl-Richard Is there a technique (or a psychedelic) to get these on purpose, or do they only happen on accident? Do they really give people an instant stream entry?

@BipolarGrowth I'm probably never going to master the 8 jhanas and achieve nirodha samapatti because I can't even get into the first jhana after an hour of meditating as hard as I can. Due to being this unskilled at meditating after an entire 3 years of practicing for 10-20 minutes most days, I've concluded that nirodha is realistically never gonna happen to me without psychedelics . Plus Daniel Ingram even says somewhere else in that book that cessations are still super freakin' rare even on psychedelics!!!!

[Vincent S]

14 minutes ago, softlyblossoming said:

@catcat69123 @Vincent S @Carl-Richard Is there a technique (or a psychedelic) to get these on purpose, or do they only happen on accident? Do they really give people an instant stream entry?

@BipolarGrowth I'm probably never going to master the 8 jhanas and achieve nirodha samapatti because I can't even get into the first jhana after an hour of meditating as hard as I can. Due to being this unskilled at meditating after an entire 3 years of practicing for 10-20 minutes most days, I've concluded that nirodha is realistically never gonna happen to me without psychedelics . Plus Daniel Ingram even says somewhere else in that book that cessations are still super freakin' rare even on psychedelics!!!!

Happened first time on weed, after a retreat. 
Second time it happened on LSD + meditation.   
Its different for everyone. You just have to find what works for you. 

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, softlyblossoming said:

Due to being this unskilled at meditating after an entire 3 years of practicing for 10-20 minutes most days

Up it to 45 minutes to 1 hour, no off days. This is crucial.

[Nahm]

Nothing. 

[Explorer_42]

@BipolarGrowth Thank you so much. That was a good read. Can you recommend any specific books/sources for jhanic meditation? 

My first awakening was totally spontaneous while listening to podcasts at work so I do lack in meditational expertise/experience a lot. 

[softlyblossoming]

2 hours ago, Vincent S said:

Happened first time on weed, after a retreat. 
Second time it happened on LSD + meditation.   
Its different for everyone. You just have to find what works for you. 

Thank you, @Vincent S, that's awesome! I can't wait to get back into psychedelics (done legally abroad).

27 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Up it to 45 minutes to 1 hour, no off days. This is crucial.

Thank you, @Carl-Richard. I'll increase to 45 minutes per day starting tomorrow, as per your suggestion. Can I split this into 2-3 chunks or does it have to be continuous?

28 minutes ago, Explorer_42 said:

My first awakening was totally spontaneous while listening to podcasts at work so I do lack in meditational expertise/experience a lot. 

I love those unexpected glimpses, they're never not awesome. Did you get any permanent changes after your first awakening?

[Carl-Richard]

1 minute ago, softlyblossoming said:

Thank you, @Carl-Richard. I'll increase to 45 minutes per day starting tomorrow, as per your suggestion. Can I split this into 2-3 chunks or does it have to be continuous?

Continuous. The 45 minute mark is where the fun happens.

[softlyblossoming]

18 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Continuous. The 45 minute mark is where the fun happens.

Thanks again, in that case I'll bump it up to the full hour. Looking forwards to seeing how my mornings play out following this advice . Is a single 1 hour sit per day enough, or do you recommend two or more of these? I'm just wondering as to when the diminishing returns would start.

Edited February 21, 2022 by softlyblossoming

[Carl-Richard]

53 minutes ago, softlyblossoming said:

Thanks again, in that case I'll bump it up to the full hour. Looking forwards to seeing how my mornings play out following this advice . Is a single 1 hour sit per day enough, or do you recommend two or more of these? I'm just wondering as to when the diminishing returns would start.

One sit a day is enough unless you absolutely want to do more  

[fictional_character]

@Vincent S That's interesting. I asked because I'm skeptical that you can achieve a state of consciousness in wich body sensation and perception dissapear.

[softlyblossoming]

13 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

One sit a day is enough unless you absolutely want to do more  

@Carl-Richard Glad to hear that. I do not want to do any more than absolutely necessary because I suck and it's demoralizing 

(and that's not even to mention the daily blow to my enormous spiritual ego that I foresee this new habit posing)

[BipolarGrowth]

1 hour ago, Explorer_42 said:

@BipolarGrowth Thank you so much. That was a good read. Can you recommend any specific books/sources for jhanic meditation? 

My first awakening was totally spontaneous while listening to podcasts at work so I do lack in meditational expertise/experience a lot. 

Read MCTB (completely free online): https://www.mctb.org/

Specific information about the jhanas can be found by going to the table of contents. 

Watch Dhammarato’s YouTube channel. This is an episode where he describes the foundations of the first jhana to me. 

Bhikkhu Candana’s YouTube channel is a great resource for Buddhist meditation. Here’s his video on the Ānāpānasati Sutta which is possibly the most important for understanding how to meditate using Buddhist techniques: 

 

[Carl-Richard]

6 minutes ago, softlyblossoming said:

@Carl-Richard Glad to hear that. I do not want to do any more than absolutely necessary because I suck and it's demoralizing 

(and that's not even to mention the daily blow to my enormous spiritual ego that I foresee this new habit posing)

Also, if you're used to 10-20 minutes, it doesn't hurt to take it step by step: 25, 30, 35, 40, 45 etc.

[Explorer_42]

@softlyblossoming 

Yes I was listening that day to Leo's interview with "theories of everything" and as I was listening I was answering all the questions too and slowly reconciling all the pieces of the puzzle together. It was boiling in me for few hrs at work until the reality "flattened". I went out to catch some air and kept on investing this phenomena of perspective shifting. I realized that the reality as perceived and all boundaries within it are completely arbitrary and all good and bad feelings associated with it are just an ego based bias.

Then I've enquired into what is aware of all that. What is it made of and what is the origin of all of it. And then it clicked and I've experienced "nothing". From then onwards it went like an avalanche. I realized that every single experience I had led me to this and that it was constructed that 'I' as reality=god=consciousness=nothing could awake to my true nature. I laughed from the bottom of my heart on the oldest joke in existence I've played on myself and I've been doing this joke over and over again for eternity. 

Since then there's been a permanent shift of perspective. The underlying nature of reality is joyful rather than serious.

I am more loving and accepting to myself and others. Especially now that I realized that this separation is completely imaginary. There are still occurrences and hardships in life that invoke emotions of anger/frustration but after 2-3 seconds the meta perspective kicks in and it looses all seriousness and I just can't be seriously frustrated anymore like I used to.

The problem I'm facing now is that I'm now aware that my true nature is to be absolutely selfless and is sooooo hard to embody being stuck in dualistic paradigm. 

But it will come, eventually

 

Edited February 21, 2022 by Explorer_42

[Explorer_42]

@BipolarGrowth Thank you so much. I'll definitely check it out.