How does one re-emerge from cessation?

This question came to me while watching the excellent talks of Ajahn @Brahmali on Dependent Origination on Dhammanet. Maybe he can help shed some light? :grimacing:

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Not all Arahants come to Nibbana via the cessation of Perception and Feeling. Only those liberated “both ways” do. Other arahants come to nibbana via the 4 Jhanas only or, more rarely, just the 1st Jhana.

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Ok yeah then maybe my using of “enlightenment” to describe cessation or Nibbana was a reason for misunderstanding. I went back and changed it.
So just to make it clear, I am talking about the “experience” of cessation or Nibbana during meditation.

Just a reminder to ground all assertions in EBT’s please, otherwise it is just opinions and views and not the Words of the Buddha :thaibuddha: :dharmawheel:

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Also, that on this forum we don’t discuss our personal practice. :smiley:

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This is exactly what I’m enquiring about :smile:
Am I wrong in stipulating that during the deepest state of mediation called cessation or Nibbana, contact as well as feeling, perception, namarupa and consciousness have ceased?

If this is so then, in order for the meditator to emerge from that state, “something” has to happen that re-establishes namarupa, feeling, perception, conctact and therefore consciousness. What is that “something”?

Some of you seem to imply that since the meditator still has a functioning body, somehow contact still occurs, which is therefore the reason the meditator can emerge from that state. However, contact has ceased at this point, along with feeling, perception and consciousness. In order for contact to be re-established “something” has to happen that re-establishes it along with feeling, perception etc…

It’s as if I’m asking: “How do the lights in my house come back on after a power outage?” and the answers I get are “because the light bulbs are still there”.
Well, ok I get that, but what happens at the power station that makes the power come back?

Anyway, thanks for the suggestion. I will read the essay and see if I can find anything useful there :grimacing:

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I think it is the language that is the issue - cessation only occurs at PariNIbbana not Nibanna. What you might be thinking of as cessation is just very deep stillness. At this level the nuances are very subtle, and there are lots of different opinions about it…

Some advice direct from Ajahn Brahm when I raised a simmilar question “Bottom line - in practice - don’t worry about it :slight_smile: Enjoy all the stillness you can, you will always come back!!” :rofl: :smiley:

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And if you don’t, there will be where else to go or to be found :smile:

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Some people can, before going to sleep make a determination to wake up at a certain time and get up very close to that time. How is that?

Cause does not necessarily have to give immediate effect.

During sleep many mental processes are still active, there is no cessation. The fact that these processes happen below the threshold of awareness (unconsciously) doesn’t mean that they don’t happen.

The same is for the jhanas according to Ajahn Brahm. You can make a resolution to emerge from a jhana at a certain time, because not all mental processes have ceased. Not so during cessation it seems to me. Something has to happen outside of the ceased processes that brings consciousness and the other aggregates back.

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The closest answer I got from the suttas is from MN 44:

“But ma’am, how does someone emerge from the cessation of perception and feeling?”

“A mendicant who is emerging from such an attainment does not think: ‘I will emerge from the cessation of perception and feeling’ or ‘I am emerging from the cessation of perception and feeling’ or ‘I have emerged from the cessation of perception and feeling.’ Rather, their mind has been previously developed so as to lead to such a state.”

“But ma’am, which arise first for a mendicant who is emerging from the cessation of perception and feeling: physical, verbal, or mental processes?”

“Mental processes arise first, then physical, then verbal.”

So it seems from this description as if there is some unconscious process that makes the aggregates reappear. However this seems to throw into question the very notion of Saññāvedayitanirodhasamāpattiyā IMO.

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Maybe, but maybe not! We shall soon find out. :slightly_smiling_face:

The main difference between the cessation of the five khandhas when the arahant passes away and the meditative attainment of cessation, known in the suttas as saññāveditanirodhā, is that the latter is brought about deliberately. To attain saññāveditanirodhā you have to incline your mind in that direction, that is, you require an initial intention or volition to attain it. You can think of this as a certain “momentum of peace” that drives the mind to the desired state. Just like any momentum, however, this particular mental inclination only has a limited effect.

Think of this way. If you set a wheel rolling, but add not further impetus to it after the initial push, then it will keep on rolling only as long as the initial energy is able to sustain it. In a similar way, the cessation of the mind is supported by the strength of the original inclination. And just as the wheel must eventually fall over, so the momentum of that original inclination of the mind will have a certain time limit, after which the mind will emerge from cessation.

When the arahant dies, however, the situation is quite different. In this case the cessation is not dependent on a momentum, but is the natural ending of phenomena. And thus there is no return to any pre-cessation state.

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I think this question is very similar to asking where is kamma stored up. Some things are undeclared by the Blessed One. Possibly because it lies out of our range, that is; we can’t have a direct experience of that reality even if we tried. And probably not needed for Enlightenment.

We may not be able to see where kamma is stored up, but possibly we can by wisdom understand how present consciousness is effected by the past. Perhaps by continuing a similar line of thinking we can come at a guess about emergence from saññāveditanirodhā.

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Thank you Ajahn! :pray:

Yes, I think this is probably the best way to think about this.
I still wonder how this process of inclination and momentum is preserved once all mentation has ceased, however I can see the reasoning behind it and it could probably be said to be a natural process sustained by the metabolism of the body and other mind-body processes, as others suggested.

Anyway, thanks for indulging my curiosity!

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Thank you Bhante,

Amazing simile. If we take the opposite of this, the wheel will just continue rolling on, when there is repeated addition of new impetus. This image seems to nicely fit the Pali- ‘hetuppabhavā’. Can you coin a new English term for this? ( ‘Dependant origination’ doesn’t quite seem to convey this idea)

I think you are quite right.

I’ll just add one beautiful EBT quote here from an especially badass Bhikkhuni:

“A mendicant who is entering such an attainment does not think: ‘I will enter the cessation of perception and feeling’ or ‘I am entering the cessation of perception and feeling’ or ‘I have entered the cessation of perception and feeling.’ Rather, their mind has been previously developed so as to lead to such a state.”

“But ma’am, which cease first for a mendicant who is entering the cessation of perception and feeling: physical, verbal, or mental processes?”

“Verbal processes cease first, then physical, then mental.”

“But ma’am, how does someone emerge from the cessation of perception and feeling?”

“A mendicant who is emerging from such an attainment does not think: ‘I will emerge from the cessation of perception and feeling’ or ‘I am emerging from the cessation of perception and feeling’ or ‘I have emerged from the cessation of perception and feeling.’ Rather, their mind has been previously developed so as to lead to such a state.”

“But ma’am, which arise first for a mendicant who is emerging from the cessation of perception and feeling: physical, verbal, or mental processes?”

“Mental processes arise first, then physical, then verbal.”

“But ma’am, when a mendicant has emerged from the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling, how many kinds of contact do they experience?”

“They experience three kinds of contact: emptiness, signless, and undirected contacts.”

“But ma’am, when a mendicant has emerged from the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling, what does their mind slant, slope, and incline to?”

“Their mind slants, slopes, and inclines to seclusion.”

~MN 44

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Bhante, would you mind explaining for us non-Americans what “badass” means? I presume that it’s not as disrespectful as it sounds. :wink:

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The sense that I meant, courtesy of the Oxford Dictionary, is:

a formidably impressive person; excellent [as in skilled]

The term became internet-famous as a meme of Neil deGrasse Tyson reacting to the fact that Sir Isaac Newton invented calculus before his 26th birthday: a “formidably impressive” accomplishment.

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Colloquially, a badass inspires speechless awe. As the Buddha said,

MN44:30.4: “The nun Dhammadinnā is astute, Visākha, she has great wisdom.
MN44:30.5: If you came to me and asked this question, I would answer it in exactly the same way as the nun Dhammadinnā.

The Buddha himself is “beyond badass”, which is the superlative of superlatives.

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