In the example with fire there remains space.
In Mahayana they call it Dharma Dhatu.
To me a wish to vanish is the same extreme as a wish live forever.
Thanks for a very well considered opening post and later replies. I was going to leave this topic halfway through but then realized you are still interested in people’s thoughts. Here’s mine.
I know it’s a bit cheeky to say, but when I read Venerable Bodhi’s statements I basically hear him say: “The Buddha used words to describe nibbana, therefore it is an existing reality.” But the words Bodhi quotes are basically the vaguest Pali has! It’s like if I say, “nibbana is something we practice for”, and you then respond “see, it’s a something!” Or think of it like this: the Buddha called nibbana an island, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually an island. Such words are meant to carry an emotional message rather than a metaphysical one. Moreover, nibbana itself even is a metaphor. Meaning the going out of a fire, it stands for cessation of a process without a core. It’s only in modern days that we centralize the term as the name for the goal. In the sutta’s it’s not that common or central at all. I think we should move away from using the term the way we do.
SN12.51: "They [the enlightened] understand: ‘When my body breaks up and my life has come to an end, everything that’s felt, since I no longer take pleasure in it, will become cool right here. Only bodily remains will be left.’ "
By having seen consciousness temporarily cease while alive.
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By what method does one know that consciousness has ceased? Not with consciousness unless there is more than one active at the same time because by definition it has ceased.
As an anology, imagine a lamp and a computer plugged into the same power. The computer has a light sensor and records it’s readings continuously while it is on. The power is repeatedly turned on and off. What do the readings from the sensor show? That the light is always on.
Well, to take that analogy further, when you turn a computer off it gives a message “shutting down”, and then when it turns back on it slowly reboots again. (Pretty instantly nowadays but imagine those old PCs we used to have? 
)
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There is also the ‘timestamp’ of the computer’s readings to be considered. 
Speaking for myself, I seem to have an internal ‘clock’. I can usually go to sleep setting a mental reminder to ‘wake at 7 am’ for example and will wake up around that time give or take 5-10 min. Even if I awaken from deep sleep, I am always aware that ‘time has passed’.
This experience of ‘time having elapsed’ seems to be similar for most people. It is not suppressed by anesthesia. Our experience appears to be continuous, despite the periods we have spent asleep, lost in thought, in surgery etc.
Experiencing cessation on the other hand is described by Sariputta in AN10.7 as a discontinuity - a second flame arising with no connection to the one that has gone out.
I’ve had similar experiences related to me by people who have been resuscitated after CPR, come out of deep coma etc. One moment one was ‘there’ the next moment one is ‘here’ with nothing to connect the two, and a ton of ‘time’ missing in the middle.
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That too.
And talking about coma (or say deep sleep for those never went fully unconscious) why would whatever consciousness some suppose to exist after full extinguishment suddenly be more aware than that? That means this consciousness either arises after extinguishment, or that it was somehow stopped or suppressed by coma/sleep. Both of which mean it isn’t some lasting awareness that’s always there waiting to be discovered.
Also, we have no problem going to sleep every night, but when somebody supposes final extinguishment results in the cessation of consciousness it’s suddenly nihilism or a craving of some sorts. 
(PS see I’m following my own advice to not use the word nibbana?) 
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Thanks. Yes.
I think, in the end, it comes down to the question if Buddha really teaches that for us there is nothing more to see and discover then fleeting physical and mental processes. Arising and ceasing formations.
I believe this is not true. Part of Buddha-Dhamma is also seeing, knowledge about that what is not seen arising and ceasing. The texts are not indistinct about this.
I think the people who compiled the sutta’s made a strange choice to use words like …an unborn, deathless, unailing, unbecome, unconditioned, unmade…IF there is really nothing like that (which is apparantly here the most common idea).
Why not, from beginning to end, make very clear in the sutta’s there are only conditioned states, nothing else. There is only sankhata and nothing else. There is no such thing as the unconditioned, unborn, unchanging, etc. Now it is all confusing.
Why even talk about:
-“There is, mendicants, an unborn, unproduced, unmade, and unconditioned"
There is no need for this at all.
or
“There is, mendicants, that dimension where there is no earth, no water, no fire, no wind; no dimension of infinite space, no dimension of infinite consciousness, no dimension of nothingness, no dimension of neither perception nor non-perception; no this world, no other world, no moon or sun"
There, mendicants, I say there is no coming or going or remaining or passing away or reappearing.
It is not established, does not proceed, and has no support. Just this is the end of suffering.”
If this is all nonsense and is not real and does not exist why talk about this dimension without support (unconditioned). Why call this the end of suffering…while this dimension is not real.
Why not just make very clear that the only thing we can realise is a temporary and conditioned state without causes for rebirth. Because that is what you believe, right?
They have made it extremely complicated.
Or…the compilers have never ever wanted to transfer that there is only the conditioned, which i believe.
When there is no arising, it is that which does not arise and does not fade away. Only that which has not arisen will not cease. absolute emptiness does not arise and does not cease.
What is “absolute emptiness”? Do you mean shunyata?
For me both general anaesthetic and deep sleep are timeless. Like consciousness is in “standby mode” or something.
However I find that dream sleep has a sense of time passing, I assume because stuff is happening in the mind.
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I think the texts refer to a moment of vinnana always in regard to a moment of awareness of a sense object. That can be a certain shape/colour, sound, smell, taste, tactile feeling, a arising emotion, idea, tought, memory etc. As soon as a certain smell disappears from your awareness, for example, one can say that one experiences the cessation of that particular smell-vinnana that was arisen. In that sense we experience all the time the cessation of certain vinnana’s.
If not any kind of vinnana arises, i.e. when no sense-object at all is being sensed or felt, can one know this state? I think the texst suggest this is possible. It is known as the stilling of all formations, the cessation of the world.
I suspect it is a very subtle knowing. I suspect that something like this is also still present in deep dreamless sleep. For example, how can we talk about this sleep as nice, as unburdensome, how can we like to sleep, if we have no knowledge at all about its qualities?
The same with the cessation of perception and feeling. How can we even talk about “the cessation of perception and feeling” if we have no knowledge about that cessation of perception and feeling? How do we know that perception and feeling has ceased if there is no way to know this? How can one afterwards decide one was in a state without perception and feeling, if this is not noticed or registered while abiding in it? Is one just phantasizing, speculating about a cessation of perception and feeling?
I think the most reasonable explanation is that there is some form of registering while in deep sleep and sannavedayitanirodha.
I mean nibbana, nirodha
Oke, that makes sense to me.
Nibbana as absolute emptiness? That’s an interesting take, though I’m still not clear what “absolute emptiness” means, practically speaking.
Are there suttas which describe Nibbana like this?
Yes, this is called perceiving the element of nibbana through the door of the mind (manas). nibbana is perceived by a stream of supramundane cittas. the condition for the existence of supramundane cittas is the mind, mental consciousness, mental object (in this case, nibbana - as the cessation of the world and all objects, as well as the consciousnesses that cognize these objects). further contact, feeling, perception, etc. if there is no manas, mano-vinnana, nama rupa, then there is no contact with the element of nibbana. In order for you to be eternally in a state of transmundane awareness of nibbana-dhamma, you need an eternal body, eternal manas, eternal mind consciousness, etc.
(this is partly possible in the world of pure lands, where anagamins constantly meditate on the element of nibbana and get there because of a subtle attachment to the experience of the element of nibbana, because of which they are reborn there and recreate, construct manas in order to experience this exalted object. but no anything eternal in this world. observing nibbana one day you will be disappointed in any contact and lose even this subtle attachment. the time of existence of the mind of anagamin will come to an end and will not be recreated again)
The cessation of the world is not realized after the destruction of Manas, but at the same time it is completely realized through the cessation of the cognizing circuit. it is absolute emptiness. nirodha.
It is the absence of the six spheres of contact, the five aggregates. cessation of dukkha
I can understand your emotional response in this matter. You know, All intelligent lives evolve from chaos, the source, through reincarnations. That is the machinery of this universe. It’s okay, and not scary, to return to the source if they can to the total extinguishment as an ultimate peace solution. Indeed it is the most powerful force in this universe. People do have the free will , though conditioned, to choose their destination whether for a reality as nibbana or the source. I’m wondering western people from the dominant Christian cultural but choose Buddhism instead maybe contain certain anti-christian anti-soul inherents that created somewhat bias in their understanding of the teachings for this matter. By time hope this will clear out of its way sooner or later. We already saw anatta has been corrected from the misleading no-self translation, to non-self instead, which means a need to find the true self, but many teachers today still hold the concept of no self for whatever personal reasons. Change isn’t easy. Independent intellectual thinking is precious. Follow your heart and be steady, but do realize the complexity of things in this world.
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Thank you, Bhante. 
We all know words have to be used, yet the mind can very quickly reify an “absence” into a “something,” yes?
Citing a well-known example: just no flame. Is the absence of a flame an absolute void? A perpetual awareness? Or is it closer to: nothing to talk about. No dukkha. Gone. I align with that.
Gone in this sense is without birth, without death, without sun, moon, stars…
(IMHO, I prefer “without” to translate the negating prefix “a” in "ajāti, for example, since “an unborn” is more easily objectified into a transcendental “something”).
At the same time and in either case – bows, respect, and gratitude to everyone who has shared on this post.
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Yes, perhaps it deserves a name. Turiya? Is that one available?
Thanks for the great posts. I am off to observe some arising and passing - I am sure I can find some somewhere.