see EBT Quotes contradicting a set of Premises - #8 by NgXinZhao
which basically fits as answer to your post.
The orthodox Theravada at least is very clear that there’s no consciousness in cessation.
Also, from the mindfulness of breathing sutta, contemplating cessation I breath in and out. And description of nibbāna seems to have cessation often in that phrase.
Say a totally nothingness, cessation of all, there’s nothing, can there be conditionality there? No, because nothing to be conditioned. But if you’re right, and there is another thing called the unconditioned, which is not the cessation, total nothing, then there’s 2 types of unconditioned. Hmm… sounds strange. What characteristics differentiate one from the other? when we have characteristics, we have signs and therefore conditionality, impermanence, etc all can come into play.
From my point of view, all those, including all the sources you cited are just reifying nibbāna to be something. Proliferating the unproliferated. The delusion of self likes to hide there. So people with those wrong views are not even stream winners, no matter what other kinds of profund wisdom they show.
It’s hard emotionally to see the teacher that we love and trust and follow and are convinced to be infallible, to have attained the goal, falls short of the standards of the sutta, and thus painfully, we have to conclude that they are not yet there. It’s still useful to learn many things from them, so long as one doesn’t get confused about the right view of parinibbāna.
I know the difficult because I have met some of these people and was hooked winked by their wisdom for a while into thinking that they are really at least a stream winner. They are lay, so I am confident to share here. Why I come on so strongly on this particular topic is because I see that it’s a real stumbling block and many people, including those very wise people with wrong view got hookwinked into wrong view and don’t know it.
The emotional tie to the rest of their wisdom as well as the delusion of self liking to find somewhere after parinibbāna to identify as or hide in are very strong combination of forces. All the more if any of you guys actually got some success on the wrong path, which leads to wrong knowledge reinforcing wrong view.