7. Cessation of Perception and Feeling (Nirodha Samapatti)

. . . by completely surmounting the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, we enter upon and abide in the cessation of perception and feeling. . . . There is no other comfortable abiding higher or more sublime than that one.

The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, sutta 31

Venerable sir, what is the difference between one who is dead and gone, and a bhikkhu [monk] who has attained the cessation of perception and feeling?

Householder, in the case of one who is dead and gone, the bodily formation has ceased and subsided, the verbal formation has ceased and subsided, the mental formation has ceased and subsided; his vitality is extinguished, his physical heat has been dissipated, and his faculties are fully broken up. In the case of a bhikkhu who has attained the cessation of perception and feeling, the bodily formation has ceased and subsided, the verbal formation has ceased and subsided, the mental formation has ceased and subsided; but his vitality is not extinguished, his physical heat has not been dissipated, and his faculties are serene. This is the difference between one who is dead and gone, and a bhikkhu who has attained the cessation of perception and feeling.[1]

The Connected Discourses of the Buddha, sutta 41.6

Explanation of the cessation

As for the four preceding formless attainments, the name of this final stage of the ninefold attainment sequence simply says what the state is about—cessation of perception and feeling. Along with perception and feeling, consciousness also ceases. It is to be taken literally. The whole conscious experience shuts down. The meditator doesn’t have any experience of the cessation period. You can’t be conscious of consciousness having ceased. The meditator only experiences the moments before and after the cessation.

Unconsciousness is an inherent feature of the cessation of perception and feeling. However, unconsciousness itself doesn’t imply the cessation, of course. The two terms are not always interchangeable. Thinking of the meditative cessation only as unconsciousness would be too much of a simplification. The way to induce the cessation unconsciousness and its effects on the body and mind are unique to that state, as far as I’m aware, distinguishing it from other types of unconsciousness. In any case, in the context of this chapter, when I speak about the absence of consciousness, I’m referring to the cessation of perception and feeling.

As the sutta above suggests, the difference between a dead person and a meditator in the cessation of perception and feeling is basically that the mental processes have ceased in both cases, but the meditator remains physiologically alive.

However, the meditator is not entirely “cut off.” Some intense external stimuli (pain, sounds) can interrupt the cessation. This means the mind-body in the cessation is still sensitive to an intense sensory impact on an unconscious level. The cessation is a deeply detached unconscious state, but not to the point of the meditator being completely “unwakeable.”

“Mental formation” refers to perception and feeling in the suttas.[2] The cessation of perception and feeling thus completes the progressive stilling of the verbal, bodily, and mental formations. The ninefold sequence of the meditative attainments gradually stills the mind to the point where it turns off completely. Processes like thinking and perceiving via the five senses are “switched off” along the way.

By definition, the cessation of perception and feeling is the highest attainment possible in terms of serenity (samatha). The mind cannot be more serene than being “turned off.” There is nowhere further to go in terms of calming the mind.

Three tips for attaining the cessation

1. Give it a try

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.“

Wayne Gretzky, Michael Scott

The first and most crucial tip is straightforward: try.

Surely, the cessation is a very high goal. The highest meditative goal. It requires months or years of full-time dedicated mind training. Generally, it will be realistic only for those who can put together the four factors for developing samadhi to a higher degree.

Nevertheless, it’s not as impossible as many people think. There is a widespread belief in the Theravada tradition that the cessation of perception and feeling is accessible only to those with the qualities of an anagami or an arahant—the two highest stages of enlightenment in the early Buddhist texts. Believe it or not, it’s not true. You don’t need to be an anagami or an arahant to attain the cessation.

Some, or maybe many, will not accept that claim. That’s fine. To those who are willing to believe it and have the conditions and motivation to try: go for it. It’s doable and worth it. In this manual, I’m sharing the most relevant information I’m aware of that might help you make it.

2. “Program” the mind to shut itself down

The second tip is the technique for stilling the mind all the way to the cessation.

The theory is not complicated: you’re in the neither perception nor non-perception, and you need to keep stilling the mind further until it shuts down. More specifically, in the neither perception nor non-perception, there is still some subtle mental activity going on. It’s mostly the residual perceptions and volitions—intentions. For example, there can be the intention to exit from the state at the end of the session. Or there can be the intention to keep doing what you’re doing—just going forward in the autopilot mode. Despite the state being relatively very serene, there are some subtle mind moves arising. Only the cessation is free from that. To enter it, you need to still even the subtlest mind-moves.

What is the trick for doing so? What is the technique? Well, there is not much discretion to do something. You’re deeply absorbed, very much in the autopilot mode. However, it’s also not 100% passive. It’s not that you have zero influence on what is happening in the mind. There is some discretion in setting the course for the autopilot. You can “program” the autopilot to go in a certain direction.

When you practice (the third mode of) mindfulness of breathing, the technique can be something like: “Keep experiencing the whole body; also, gradually tranquilize the breathing process; if the mind wanders away, get it back; if it becomes pleasant, (passively) delight in it . . . .” The technique for getting from the neither perception nor non-perception to the cessation can’t be that elaborate. It can’t be keeping multiple objectives in mind. It can’t be “If this happens, I do that; if another thing happens, I do something else.” There is no room for that in such a deeply absorbed state.

You need one very simple rule for that small amount of discretion you have there, for those occasions when you’re not only passively following through. That rule should “program” the autopilot to go in the direction of stilling all mental activity. Also, it needs to be applicable to anything arising in the mind. It needs to be universal and simple.

The golden rule

The rule is to cut, abandon, relinquish anything that arises in the mind. Any subtle mind move that arises in the mind, anything happening in the mind beyond just going forward in the autopilot mode—you cut it, abandon it, don’t let it unfold immediately as it arises. It doesn’t have the nature of forcing it out. It has the nature of releasing it.

You apply it to anything arising, even to the intention to follow this rule itself. If the intention to cut whatever arises in the mind arises in the mind, you cut that intention as well (of course, without abandoning the whole practice of cutting whatever arises in the mind). At that point, it becomes strangely paradoxical, but it works.

So, you’re either entirely in the autopilot mode, just going with the flow (that will likely be most of the time), or you’re applying this rule. In other words, you are either “doing nothing” or using the rule. The rule is the universal reaction to anything happening in the mind beyond the autopilot.

You develop the rule into a habit. You program the mind to release any subtle mind activity arising. That is the directing of the autopilot towards the cessation—nirodha samapatti. Gradually, it can become natural and automatic. This is the mind mode that can lead the mind to shut itself down.

3. Double down when fear arises

Fear could pose a challenge at this stage of the path—the fear of losing control and the fear of the unknown.

It shouldn’t be surprising. You’re getting to the borders of conscious experience. You’re close to turning your consciousness off. It’s hard to imagine someone attaining the cessation experiencing absolutely no fear beforehand. In fact, fear arising is an indicator that the practice is going well. It means you are getting closer to the goal, which lies outside of your known comfort zone.

The main issue may not be the thing causing the fear itself but that it surprises you, and you shy away. Getting familiar with the states bordering on the cessation helps. Seeing that nothing bad ever comes out of it, that there is nothing to be afraid of, the fear may gradually subside.

Use your pre-play

Generally, a more active way of dealing with fear is working with it in your pre-play. The fear is usually caused by some extraordinary event[3] in meditation that drags the meditator out of the known comfort zone. The extraordinary events can also be the most valuable ones—if you don’t turn away and you go through them.

So, you get mentally ready for it in your pre-play. You realize that the fear might arise, that it’s an indicator of the practice going well; you can actually see it as a window of opportunity arising, and you determine not to shy away but to double down instead should it arise—you will steadily go against the fear, following through whatever is causing the fear as far as you can. Courage pays off.

This “if-then” rule can be an exception to having only the one golden rule described earlier (the fear arising is an exceptional event, rather than a standard part of meditation).

My first experience of emerging from the cessation

I say “experience of emerging” because the cessation itself is never experienced. “Experience of the cessation” is an oxymoron unless it refers more broadly to the experience including the moments before and after the cessation, which are the only parts consciously experienced.

The first emerging from the cessation has been by far the most intense experience I’ve ever had. The extraordinary thing about the first emerging was its overwhelming physical impact. Two similes came to my mind shortly afterward: as if struck by lightning or hit by a truck (not that I’ve ever experienced either of the two). The initial main impact was brief, let’s say a few seconds. It was an intense overwhelming shock wave originating in the head, going through the spine, and impacting every inch of the body. The intensity was outright frightening and shocking, yet the effect was calmingly blissful. There was a quick flash of bright white light in the mind (although it was literally enlightening, it wasn’t “the enlightenment”—experiencing light doesn’t make you any more enlightened). It felt like a breaking of a barrier. No emerging from the cessation ever since has felt that intense.

At first, I tried to keep meditating. After a short while, I gave up. I was too overwhelmed by what happened, so I opened my eyes. Deeply calming bliss was pervading my body, and I was staring in front of myself in shock. The mind reached another level of serenity and brightness, even compared to the already very serene and bright mind of the formless attainments.

I kept staring there in front of myself, probably for a few minutes, being shocked by the event’s intensity. After a while, I burst into tears. It was not like there was a choice. It felt like an unstoppable physiological reaction to the shock.

Right after the initial intense event, I thought it was the cessation. But it doesn’t come with a label “cessation of perception and feeling.” Some verification wouldn’t hurt. I will discuss later in this chapter how to check whether the cessation is happening.

Some of the features and effects of the cessation practice

The subjective continuity of experience

Theoretically, it might be obvious, but in reality, it can still be somewhat unintuitive: The overall cessation experience, including the period before and after it, is subjectively 100% continuous. There is zero sense or memory of any gap, of any interruption in one’s conscious experience—the cessation. Subjectively, all you get is the moments before the cessation immediately followed by emerging from the cessation. So, the cessation causes a sudden switch from the mind before to the mind after it, while in fact, the mind before and after the cessation can be separated by a fair amount of time.

The continuity was also somewhat surprising to me the first time I went through the cessation. All there was was the extraordinary experience I described, with no sense of any gap, no sense of the cessation itself. Again, theoretically, it makes total sense, and it can’t be otherwise. Yet it can be unintuitive in practice, especially in the beginning.

The difficulty of knowing the cessation duration

All you can do regarding estimating the cessation duration is deduct the time you remember being aware from the total time of the meditation session. The tricky part is, of course, that remembering how long you were aware is subjective and may not be accurate, especially in such deep meditation, where time subjectively goes by faster. Nonetheless, if you’re well familiar with how, let’s say, one hour of the neither perception nor non-perception is, you can make a reasonably reliable estimate of how 20 or 30 minutes of it is. They’re always only estimates, but they can be legitimate if you try to be as objective as possible and don’t fall into self-deceit.

With only one long cessation within a meditation session, estimating the duration would be relatively easy. That’s already a very advanced practice, however. More likely, there will be several cessations within one meditation session. In that case, you can estimate the duration of all the cessations together but not the durations of the individual cessations (unless you would disturb yourself by pressing a stopwatch button after emerging from each cessation). I estimate my longest overall cessation duration to be 30–40 minutes within one hour of meditation.

If the cessation practice is not yet well developed, and you attain it only now and then for a short time, it’s virtually impossible to know the duration. That was the case with my first cessation. The emerging from the cessation came towards the end of a meditation session that didn’t appear to be significantly shorter than what the stopwatch showed, meaning it may have been anything from a few seconds to a few minutes. There is no way to find out.

Nonduality

By nonduality, I mean that the subject-object perspective of experiencing subsides. It’s no longer “I experience something.” Instead, it’s “an experience is happening” with no or less of a sense of the “I.” Experiencing becomes impersonal.

Continuous practice of the cessation of perception and feeling generates, prolongs, and intensifies nondual awareness both during the meditations (speaking of the periods when you’re aware, not in the cessation) and outside of them.

Generally, nondual experiences can vary in duration and intensity. They can be intense to the point of being frightening. The fear is caused by the sense of losing one’s “self.” In such cases, the strategy of doubling down and going against the fear applies. Selflessness is the limit (and, unlike experiencing light, 100% selflessness is the enlightenment—Nirvana—according to the Buddha’s teaching).

Dreamless sleep

Practicing jhana can result in more frequent and vivid dream recall. After some time of the cessation practice, on the contrary, sleep becomes strikingly dreamless.

How to check if the cessation is happening

To prevent overestimation, a down-to-earth assessment and critical thinking are essential. There is no perfect self-check for the attainment of nirodha samapatti. However, checking for it can be relatively more reliable than for the lower meditative attainments.

For any non-cessation meditative attainment, you need to judge whether the quality of your experience matches how the attainment is defined. The tricky part is, of course, that interpreting meditative experiences is subjective. Different meditators can interpret different experiences similarly and similar experiences differently.

For the cessation, the situation is more straightforward. The attainment is defined as the mental formation—perception and feeling—ceasing. The meditator’s state, or “experience,” is compared to that of a dead person, the difference being that the meditator is still physiologically alive. The cessation is a non-experience.

So, the test is whether the mind is “on” or “off.” You’re judging whether there was a period during which you were unconscious. It’s a “0/1” test for a period of unconsciousness. Such a test is relatively easier and more objective than evaluating whether your experience matches certain non-cessation qualities.

There is no hard proof of the cessation. It’s rather a combination of indicators that can point to it:

Cessation indicators

The intensity of the first emergence

This is the necessary condition even to consider the possibility that the cessation happened.

Sure, one could object that the emerging from the cessation may not be the same for everyone. I agree. And I admit I have a tiny sample size of how the first emergence is. However, based on the experience I had and the fact that it’s supposed to be the highest meditative attainment possible according to the suttas, I would be very surprised if the breakthrough into it would be a mild event for anyone. Within the field of samadhi experiences, the intensity should probably be a multiple of anything you have experienced before, including the most intense experiences of the jhanas and the formless attainments. It should be a big outlier. A hypothesis as to why that might be the case is outlined in the next chapter.

The intense experience I describe is not hard proof of nirodha samapatti. However, I think it’s a valid indicator. The formless attainments, and the neither perception nor non-perception especially, are very consistent states. One of the main features is their stability. Yes, there are still some little changes. There are still some subtle mind moves. But there are no sudden intense “roller coasters.” None.

In that sense, the hypothesis that such an intense experience would be “nothing,” or some part of the neither perception nor non-perception state, is more challenging to uphold than the hypothesis that, indeed, it is emerging from the cessation of perception and feeling. There are no explanations more rational and consistent with the nature of the formless attainments than the experience being emergence from the cessation.

But, of course, that is sort of a “What else would it be?” indicator, which doesn’t work with the absence of perception, feeling, and consciousness. It inherently assumes that the cessation is what follows what I call “neither perception nor non-perception.” So, let’s move on to the indicators based on the absence of perception, feeling, and consciousness, which have more objective strength.

The missing time indicator

This is the most obvious indicator. It relates to what I’ve discussed regarding the difficulty of knowing the cessation duration. Suppose a significant amount of time is “missing” from the meditation session, and it’s accompanied by the experience(s) unusual to the neither perception nor non-perception that seems to be the emergence(s) from the cessation. That might be an indicator of the cessation.

The issue is the subjectivity of time perception. That is why “significant” (amount of time missing) is essential. For instance, if the meditation session lasts 80 minutes and feels like only an hour, it doesn’t mean that much. It’s not unusual that meditation feels somewhat shorter than how long it actually is according to the stopwatch. But if you’re well familiar with how 80 minutes of the neither perception nor non-perception is, and it suddenly seems to be, let’s say, shorter by half or more, that can already be a cessation indicator.

The light switch indicator

Upon emergence from the cessation, the experience is briefly as if the mind is collecting back together, and the mind may not be fully absorbed. Still with the eyes closed, it’s possible to perceive whether it’s dark or light outside. Also, it’s possible, or rather quite likely, that there are multiple cessations within one meditation session, not just one. The cessations can follow shortly after each other. Combining all that with meditating from darkness to daylight in the morning, or daylight to darkness in the evening, can serve as a cessation test.

In the case of the morning, for example, if the meditation session covers both when it’s still dark outside and when it’s light, you might experience one emergence from the cessation, being aware it’s still dark outside, shortly after that followed by another emergence from the cessation, being aware of daylight outside. It can be almost like turning on the light switch. It can be going from complete darkness to full daylight in a few moments, while in reality it obviously takes more time. That indicates the mind was really “turned off” between what you consider to be the two emergences from the two cessations.

The missing movement indicator

The cessation subjectively works as a bit of a time machine—in an instant, you move forward by the cessation duration, which can be a few seconds, several minutes, or longer. In addition to that, the upper torso and the head might slightly move during the cessation without interrupting it. From the meditator’s perspective, due to the continuity of experience, the result is that the position of the head instantaneously switches from A to B with absolutely no sense of the movement from A to B. If the first emergence from the cessation was the most intense meditative experience I’ve ever had, this may be the weirdest one. It feels very strange—like an instantaneous fast-forwarding into a different time and position.

This is only a passive indicator. The moving during the cessation may or may not happen. So, if you never experience it, it doesn’t imply there is no cessation. If it does happen, though, it can be another piece of the puzzle indicating that, indeed, there was a period when you were unconscious.

The impossibility of checking for short cessations

The last three indicators are all based on a sufficiently long period of non-experience occurring. No such indicators are available for brief cessations (that still perfectly qualify as nirodha samapatti, no matter the duration). All the meditator has is the mind quickly changing from the mind before to the mind emerging from the cessation, which can be a more or less profound experience (except for the very first emergence, which should be exceptionally profound). But there is no way to self-check that a short time is missing from one’s experience. All you have is what you consider to be the emerging from the cessation, which is basically the mind suddenly changing in some way. But the mind quickly changing is not that unusual. That can happen even for non-cessation events.

What does it mean? It doesn’t mean that claims of short cessation attainments should be outright dismissed. It does mean, though, that such claims are solely based on the meditator’s belief that what is happening is the entering and emerging from the cessation, without any at least somewhat objective evidence of the mind being really “turned off.” The lack of evidence is not the fault of the meditator, however. It’s impossible to have such evidence for brief cessations, even if they’re real.

Making a fact-based judgment

So, first, you may be confident you have attained nirodha samapatti based on the quality and intensity of the believed-to-be first emergence from it, accompanied by the profound effects it has beyond the meditation.

Then, you might be able to support that initial confidence by the indicators pointing to the mind being shut down for sufficiently long periods.

And, finally, by then, you know how emerging from the cessation is, so you can also identify the short cessations by it, despite not having any bulletproof self-check for them.

Overall, there is no scientific-level cessation self-check available for the meditator. However, with the approach outlined above, critical thinking, and resistance to self-deceit, it’s feasible to make a reasonably reliable judgment whether the cessation of perception and feeling is happening. In any case, the judgment should be fact-based, not driven by wishful thinking and bias.

Key Takeaways

“The rule [to attain the cessation] is to cut, abandon, relinquish anything that arises in the mind [while in the neither perception nor non-perception]. Any subtle mind move that arises in the mind, anything happening in the mind beyond just going forward in the autopilot mode—you cut it, abandon it, don’t let it unfold immediately as it arises. It doesn’t have the nature of forcing it out. It has the nature of releasing it. . . . This is the mind mode that can lead the mind to shut itself down.”

“ . . . the overall cessation experience, including the period before and after it, is subjectively 100% continuous. There is zero sense or memory of any gap, of any interruption in one’s conscious experience—the cessation. Subjectively, all you get is the moments before the cessation immediately followed by emerging from the cessation.”

“Continuous practice of the cessation of perception and feeling generates, prolongs, and intensifies nondual awareness both during the meditations (speaking of the periods when you’re aware, not in the cessation) and outside of them.”

[2] The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, sutta 44.

[3] The extraordinary events were discussed in the General Meditation Tips chapter.

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