Is Nirodha Samapatti Nibbana?

In the previous two essays I looked at what Nibbana is, and at the question of whether nirodha samapatti (cessation of perception and feeling) constitutes Nibbana upon emergence, that is, what the attainment yields once one comes out of it. In this essay I explore not what follows the attainment, but the state itself. Is it correct to say that one is experiencing Nibbana while in the cessation of perception and feeling?

The suttas speak of Nibbana in at least three senses. First, there is Nibbana in a provisional sense, where the word is applied in a figurative way to deep states of concentration in which the defilements of the mind are, for the time being, absent (AN 9.47). Second, there is Nibbana with remainder, the condition of an arahant who is still alive: the taints are destroyed, but the five aggregates, the "remainder", continue until death. Third, there is final Nibbana without remainder, the cessation of existence after the death of an arahant.

So the question of whether nirodha samapatti is Nibbana is in fact not one question but three, and the answer is not the same in each case.

Nibbana in a provisional sense: yes

In the provisional sense, nirodha samapatti is without doubt Nibbana. For the whole duration of the attainment the mind is, in the figurative sense, "extinguished". It is the eight samadhi attainments that AN 9.47 places under this provisional heading, so the ninth one – the cessation of perception and feeling – clearly qualifies as well.

It is worth adding that AN 9.47 does not stop at the provisional sense. After running the jhanas and the formless attainments through that heading, it goes on to speak of Nibbana in a definitive, non-provisional sense, and it reserves that sense for the cessation of perception and feeling followed by the destruction of the taints, "having seen with wisdom". What makes it definitive is the wisdom that ends the taints, not the cessation of perception and feeling as such. And that wisdom, as I argued in the previous essay, is what the cessation does not by itself guarantee immediately.

Nibbana with remainder: no

This provisional Nibbana, however, lasts only as long as the state of cessation. And, again, it does not necessarily amount to the irreversible removal of the taints, the unwholesome roots and the fetters. The meditator can come out with the same underlying tendencies as before. And Nibbana with remainder is precisely the taints, the defilements and the fetters being destroyed for good. A temporary shutting down of the mind is not that. So in this sense the answer is no.

Final Nibbana: no

Nor is the state final Nibbana. It is true that the cessation attainer is in several ways compared to a corpse, since the bodily, verbal and mental formations have ceased (SN 41.6). But the comparison is drawn precisely in order to mark the difference. In the one who has died, vitality is extinguished and the physical heat has faded; in the one in cessation, vitality remains and the body is still warm and alive. The being is alive and will emerge. Final Nibbana is the definitive cessation of existence, while the cessation of perception and feeling is a living person's temporary state. So here too, obviously, the answer is no.

The strongest argument: the stilling of all formations

The most compelling case for calling nirodha samapatti Nibbana, in a stronger sense than the merely provisional one, rests on the idea of the stilling of formations. On the way to the cessation of perception and feeling the formations are indeed stilled: the verbal formations (thought and examination) cease first, then the bodily formations (in- and out-breathing), and finally the mental formations (perception and feeling) (MN 44, SN 36.11). By the time one is in nirodha samapatti, all three have come to rest. And the suttas do describe Nibbana as "the stilling of all formations" (sabbasankhara-samatha; e.g., MN 26). If Nibbana is the stilling of all formations, and nirodha samapatti is a state in which all formations are stilled, then the inference is tempting: this state is Nibbana.

I do not think the inference holds, because the two phrases are not using the word "formations" in the same sense. As I understand it, "the stilling of all formations" in the Nibbana phrase primarily refers to the stilling of the kammic formations: the volitional actions by body, speech and mind, rooted in greed, hate and delusion, which produce kammic results and lead to renewed existence after death. These are the formations that stand as the second link of the twelvefold dependent origination, conditioned by ignorance, and they come to rest when ignorance ceases. This stilling is realized by the arahant already in this life, which is Nibbana with remainder, and it is brought to completion at the death of the arahant, where all conditioned formations cease without remainder. Either way, the phrase has in view a permanent stilling, tied to the ending of ignorance.

The formations that are stilled in nirodha samapatti are of a different order. The bodily, verbal and mental formations are stilled, but the underlying root – ignorance and the formative volitions (sankhara) that it conditions – is not irreversibly removed. The stilling that the Nibbana phrase has in view is the definitive stilling that comes with the ending of ignorance, not the temporary stilling of a meditative state.

So, is nirodha samapatti Nibbana?

Let me bring the threads together. Is nirodha samapatti Nibbana in a provisional sense? Absolutely. Is it a form of the stilling of formations? Yes. But is it correct to say that the cessation of perception and feeling is Nibbana in the narrower, non-provisional sense, the Nibbana with or without remainder that is the goal of the path? I don’t think so.

And yet, if one were to ask whether there is any state available during life that gives something like a "taste" of final Nibbana ("taste" in a figurative sense, of course), then nirodha samapatti is clearly the best candidate. In it, all three types of formations and all experience cease, and for that interval there is "nothing at all" – that is the highest bliss and peace.

Sources:

Anguttara Nikaya (AN): The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Wisdom Publications, 2012

Samyutta Nikaya (SN): The Connected Discourses of the Buddha, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Wisdom Publications, 2000

Majjhima Nikaya (MN): The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Wisdom Publications, 2009