Stopping of heart in Nirodha Samapatti?

Q & A
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I use Thanissaro’s translations including in AN 9.41. There is a generational difference between Bikkhu Bodhi, Thanissaro and Sujato, and there is an era difference in their translations, the latter strongly popularist and softening expressions to the extent they lose their intended meaning. For that reason I cannot read them. The present Sujato case, replacing ‘heart’ with ‘mind’ is simply modernizing the text in the light of medical knowledge. However it loses the impact of ‘heart leaps up’ and in modern expression feelings like approval and enthusiasm are in fact located in the heart (the mind cannot be said to leap up), and from practising mindfulness of feeling in my experience they are sourced there. Another example from AN 9.41 is Thanissaro’s “ to us renunciation is like a sheer drop-off,” compared with Sujato’s “renunciation is like an abyss,” it does not communicate the feeling of sudden coldness felt by lay people in the presence of renunciation. The accuracy of describing feelings in the suttas is specific and not to be trifled with. So the question under discussion has both a feeling component as well as the matter of the physical location of the mind, which is of course in the brain. However in early Buddhism, feelings are said to be mental (SN 41.6), which to them meant they were located in the heart.

“Feeling, perception, & consciousness are conjoined, friend, not disjoined. It is not possible, having separated them one from another, to delineate the difference among them. For what one feels, that one perceives. What one perceives, that one cognizes. Therefore these qualities are conjoined, not disjoined, and it is not possible, having separated them one from another, to delineate the difference among them.”—MN 43

This means that in modern context heart (certain feelings) and mind are combined, and every thought has a feeling tone.

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Fair enough. Thanks for giving context of your preferences and choices. :anjal:

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"Then the thought occurred to me: ‘If, having seen the drawback of the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception, I were to pursue that theme; and if, having understood the reward of the cessation of perception & feeling, I were to familiarize myself with it, there’s the possibility that my heart would leap up at the cessation of perception & feeling, grow confident, steadfast, & firm, seeing it as peace.’—AN 9.41

Mindfulness always operates independently as a governing supervisor (AN 10.58, AN 4.245).
It is seen here how evaluation of the degree of suffering remaining occurs at every level:

"Furthermore, there is the case where a monk, with the complete transcending of the dimension of nothingness, enters & remains in the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception. If, as he remains there, he is beset with attention to perceptions dealing with the dimension of nothingness, that is an affliction for him. Now, the Blessed One has said that whatever is an affliction is stress. So by this line of reasoning it may be known how pleasant Unbinding is.

“Furthermore, there is the case where a monk, with the complete transcending of the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception, enters & remains in the cessation of perception & feeling. And, having seen [that] with discernment, his mental fermentations are completely ended. So by this line of reasoning it may be known how Unbinding is pleasant.”—AN 9.34