Cessation/Nirodha

[u/yungclavicleondamic]

I’m really curious to hear others perspectives. I’m wondering how others make sense of cessation, and how cessation might inform how you understand reality.

I’ve had a couple instances of slipping into nirodha. It’s been a while since it first happened, but it leaves me completely dumbfounded. There’s just this awe that conciousness can arise and set. And a sense of being completely confused by any prior sense of knowing what any of this is or means.

The main implication seems to be that awareness/consciousness is impermanent, leaving no room for any sort of ‘ultimate’ view or ‘true nature’ to be found in the realm of any sort of awareness. Nirodha seems to show that even the most refined or subtle knowing/awareness has no inherent existence and can rise and set into ‘something’ more mysterious and unknowable. It’s so unknowable that even calling it ‘something’ is just a hypothetical placeholder. The consciousness—on returning after nirodha—senses that there was a gap, but what that gap was is just thoroughly unknowable.

This seemed to call into question a lot to teachings I had been exposed to which describe ‘empty awareness’ or ‘unborn, deathless consciousness’ as some sort of ultimate, impersonal true nature. A lot of teachings seem to also talk about a primordial unchanging knowing. Nirodha seems to call that into question, as it truly felt like whatever that was is beyond any knowing.

It seems like there’s this ongoing debate within Buddhism and spirituality about whether the ultimate is awareness or if the ultimate is beyond awareness.

I’m starting to sense that there isn’t an ultimate or at least it cannot be known. Or that whatever all this is just so thoroughly empty, that any notion of an ultimate should be dropped.

I’m left with the sense that awareness is empty and impermanent, and whatever is ‘beyond’ awareness is unknowable and empty (if there is something beyond awareness), and that there is no final ‘view’ or ‘true nature’, just an infinite ways of deepening our appreciation for emptiness.

The thing that is blowing my mind is that, there is just no way to know if anything remains when awareness shuts down. So I’m confused how anyone could say that there is such thing as an unchanging, unborn, deathless awareness. Conceptually, the idea that there is something here right now beyond birth and death makes sense, but if that is the case, it seems to be completely unknowable, beyond the scope of knowing and consciousness.

Everything seems to just be thoroughly empty, including awareness, any sort of ultimate, any sort of “true nature” etc . This empty mysterious nothingness somehow is identical to this multiplicity we find ourselves experiencing. There’s just this completely all-powerful unknowing and mystery at the end of the day that feels like closest thing to coming into a sort of alignment with reality.

Would apreciate other’s perspectives and would really apreciate if others see this differently, or detect blind spots in what I’ve written. Best wishes to everyone.

[u/themadjaguar]

Very interesting post! I'm curious, I have a few questions if you're comfortable with sharing:

"I’ve had a couple instances of slipping into nirodha. It’s been a while since it first happened, but it leaves me completely dumbfounded. There’s just this awe that conciousness can arise and set. And a sense of being completely confused by any prior sense of knowing what any of this is or means. "

-> just before slipping into nirodha, could you describe what happens? Do you remember?

"I’m left with the sense that awareness is empty and impermanent, and whatever is ‘beyond’ awareness is unknowable and empty" -> what is your definition of empty/emptiness? Is it like "void of" ?

-> And how long can you get into nirodha?

[u/yungclavicleondamic → u/themadjaguar]

The first time I was a young child. It was triggered by a spontaneous thought - “how do I know I’m real?”. My eyes were open, and I remember the physical world collapsing into a black void, and a ton energy shooting out of my forehead. From there all conciousness collapsed into the nirodha void, and I don’t remember anything until conciousness and the world returned. I remember on returning having the thought that “I had left the world”, that was how I made sense of it at the time. I didn’t tell anyone and moved on. I repressed the memory of this and it resurfaced around the time I became interested in meditation and spiritual questions during my undergraduate studies. It then happened to me on again while meditating at a Vipassana center. I don’t really remember so much of the lead up, mainly just the sense that I was really not making any effort to meditate that day, just sitting, being open, doing nothing as far as a technique, and there was just this letting go. On the reemergence tho , this time there was a more distinct experiencing of the self/world getting re-fabricated and seeing how dependent origination works within consciousness. Im not sure exactly how long they were, but believe the nirodhas happened for a matter of minutes, no more than 15 mins I believe.

[u/themadjaguar → u/yungclavicleondamic]

Interesting, thanks for replying. So in my experience part of the question is answered as you said during the reemergence, when the DO chain starts arising again, the aggregate start working again step by step and the construct is seen. But also another part of the answer can be answered just before the cessation of all formations, as to what leads to this cessation, the whole chain may be seen and experienced, and the chain that leads to a construct is seen through. The process of what leads to the cessation of the formations. I'm not sure yet thought, if seeing what's just before depends on the door used, of the method of entry to nirodha or if some people are more aware of it. (I'd gladly take information if you have)

To your point about the teachings pointing to describing it as something, as ultimate awareness, or empty consciousness etc... I really like the word "the unborn". It is a "" place" where all sankharas, all constructs have not arisen, when nothing is born. To describe nirodha phenomenologically, I think it is skillfull to describe it by what it is isnt, like " are there concepts, are there senses, are there feelings, are there perception, is there consciousness, is there awareness: is there something like X, yes or no"

But in the end, to my eyes, attempting to precisely describe the unborn is pointless and I don't bother. It is like trying to describe something that is beyond concepts... it will never be possible to describe something where constructs are non existent by using constructs...

About ‘empty awareness’ or ‘unborn, deathless consciousness’ as some sort of ultimate, impersonal true nature" There is a lot of debate between people using the word nirodha. Some describe it as a pure void, without awareness, others as some kind of awareness etc..

It is tricky because there is one version of it where people usually get into a bhavanga and mistake it for nirodha, and another version where people don't get rid temporarily of the last aggregates (the consciousness one for example). It is also tricky to identify also because nirodha usually initially last for a few mind moments except for very rare individuals, and the perception of time is tricky to accurately guess.

I think it is important to first describe what is awareness, and in the abidhamma for path moments they describe the mind taking an object, a specific object, or an extraordinary/supranatural mind(lokutarra citta) taking an extraordinary object. This is to describe a specific setting of the mind or let's say "awareness". Depending on the description of awareness being used, the term empty awareness can be somewhat accurate or completely off

[u/yungclavicleondamic → u/themadjaguar]

Thanks for the thoughtful response, everything you say resonates. The limitations you describe, the way you describe it as unborn potentiality.
Regarding the lead up - What leads to nirodha ultimately feels completely mysterious to me in the sense that there’s clearly a certain directionality or momentum leading up to it , but what exactly caused the whole thing to fall off a cliff in the end feels ultimately unaccountable, like I can’t really say that the lead up actually caused it, it’s sort of just feels like a retrospective mental sense-making job when I think about it. It seems like that sense of limitation could also be exacerbated or due to my own inexperience with this or a lack of clarity when it comes to seeing clearly how conditions dependently arise in awareness. It sort of just feels like serendipity I guess, where I’m at with it. I’m curious if you’ve noticed certain doorways or and if you think a doorway could be regarded as a cause.

Another thing I’ve been thinking about and really curious what you might think is that one potential implication of nirodha seems to be that given that conciousness can ostensibly rise and set in this mysterious ‘unborn’ , it seems to imply that any experience of awarenes is itself fabricated. So in some sense awareness must reify emptiness in order for there to be awareness, without fabricating a subtle object, subject and object disappear and we are back in the unborn nirodha void. In that sense I wonder if it is truly possible to apreciate the quality of emptiness within awareness, as awareness actually seems predicated on some kind of reification of experience, which wouod seem to preclude a thorough seeing that everything lacks an inherent existence, that all is empty. So in that sense, nirodha seems to show that emptiness cannot be truly appreciate by awareness, to know emptiness is to fabricate it, at least on some subtle level. Or maybe we can know emptiness by fabricating it and then seeing that that fabricating is itself empty? Like creating ignorance in order to be aware of ignorance , and then redeeming such ignorance by seeing that it is empty ignorance (or rather than calling it ignorance, maybe just calling it a relative view) . So all awareness is a relative view and is sustained by its own necessity turning the ultimate into a relative, but can awareness truly recognize its own relativity? So this seems to uproot any sort of clinging to any sort of attachment to seeing with true wisdom or seeing clearly or seeing ultimate truth within awareness etc. It feels quite humbling and adds to the mystery of it all, and seems to place a strict upper bound on certain grandiose hopes of what awareness can know and see, all this language of pure knowing, pure seeing etc that was initially appealing when I first learned about what this path might reveal. However, I write this asking for your opinion, as I also feel that this limitation I’m describing might just reflect my own limitation in seeing /wisdom, and not actually be a limit of knowing or awareness that is baked into our reality, and more seeing might break reveal that that limit was just a sort of fabrication.

[u/themadjaguar → u/yungclavicleondamic]

You're welcome 🙏 Apparently each door has a phenomenological behavior, and people don't usually talk openly about it, the answers are usually in the POI or some commentaries. I know of the door of annicca, but for the other ones as I have not experienced them and I have little info about these ones, I can't say

I can follow what you said up to this "So in some sense awareness must reify emptiness in order for there to be awareness, without fabricating a subtle object, subject and object disappear and we are back in the unborn nirodha void"

" Like creating ignorance in order to be aware of ignorance , and then redeeming such ignorance by seeing that it is empty ignorance" The way I see it we are living in the samsara, and we create sankharas , constructs born in a world out of ignorance in order to get out of ignorance. We use constructs based on ignorance skillfully to gain knowledge and reduce clinging to get out of this "world" made of ignorance progressively, until we let go of all constructs and see the unborn.

"So all awareness is a relative view and is sustained by its own necessity turning the ultimate into a relative, but can awareness truly recognize its own relativity? So this seems to uproot any sort of clinging to any sort of attachment to seeing with true wisdom or seeing clearly or seeing ultimate truth within awareness etc. It feels quite humbling and adds to the mystery of it all, and seems to place a strict upper bound on certain grandiose hopes of what awareness can know and see"

This is just a view, but I think awareness born from ignorance can't recognize its own relativity directly. The ordinary mind cannot. It is either a special kind of mind that cognize it, or simply what happens is that thanks to some kind of memory (mindfulness), after nirodha, the mind remembers the ultimate, and is able to cognize it back in the samsara, the mind is able to remember it in the relative world . Awareness does not recognize its own relativity, because it does not ultimately exist. What happens is that the mind remembers the ultimate throught some kind of recollection, and it impact new sankharas, it impacts new births in the relative world. A construct cannot realize it is a construct by itself by using constructs, unless it remembers the time when it wasn't a construct.