Daniel M. Ingram:
@ BCDEFG: and why don't you think of that refined experience with very little else going on as something like 7th or 8th rather than NS?
I'll do my best to explain. Again, note that I'm pretty sure I've experienced what you call NS, and I'm not questioning the phenomenology of that experience (aka set-up, total shutdown (nothing at all remaining), coming-on-line with amazing bliss/relaxation lasting hours/days). Also I'll say "fruition-NS" to refer to what you call NS and "?-NS" to refer to the state I'm talking about.
You're essentially wondering whether what I experienced wasn't just a very hard, profound formless jhana, vs. something else entirely. A few reasons:
I've experienced 7th + 8th jhanas with no bodily feeling/breath feeling at all, before (with eyes closed). Mostly I noticed these on the way back from fruition-NS, as experience started layering back as I went down the jhanas (not sure if this happens to you after fruition-NS?). E.g. I notice nothingness coming in, then consciousness 'filling' up, then space, then body starts coming in, etc,. coarser + coarser. So, in 7th jhana, there was nothing - no body - just the experience of nothingness. In the 8th jhana there was that very weird feeling of not sure I'm there or not, something refined, but hard to tell what it is. This was totally different. There was complete + utter relaxation. Literally, there would have been no issue staying in that state forever. Nothing mattered, cause whatever could make anything matter, wasn't there. This quality was never present in the 7th + 8th jhanas I've gotten. Those still had some tension, even when they were incredibly relaxing, it was not the same.
The entrance was different. I was sitting with open-eyes. Previously, when I thought I'd gotten formless jhanas with eyes-open, the whole visual field would be taken as an object by 4th jhana, then it would start warping in weird ways. By 7th jhana its like it was there yet not being paid attention to, anymore. By 8th jhana it started to get blurry/start fading away to a spot even. And then the cessation (fruition-NS), then going back out + down the jhanas in reverse order. (Note that I've never gotten an open-eyed formless jhana (unless ?-NS is it) where the visual field would simply black out, though in some cases I noticed I'd be concentrating and it was like a black fog was creeping in to cover the visual field.)
In the case of the entrance to ?-NS, I was already in formless-territory as far as I could tell, and suddenly within a few moments everything collapsed/broke apart into that state. It was very sudden + quick + unexpected, not gradually more+more uncertain until a cessation (as before up through 8th then a cessation). It's like there was a stopgap before that just somehow broke loose, so the unhindered entrance happened right away. Also, 'being'/attention wave totally vanished as far as I could tell (which is why it was so relaxing, I think), whereas that hasn't happened before for me with formless jhanas and I don't even see that as a natural consequence of them, necessarily.
The exit was different. Usually the exit for fruition-NS is a gradual going back down the jhanas (after a few moments of not-being-sure what happened, the mind coming back on-line). And, the exit from formless jhanas is just the jhana slowly deteriorating into the previous one. In this case, it was a sudden and unexpected exit, and I could see 'being' reforming before my very eyes, ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping, with no mental dullness/lack of clarity whatsoever as happens when rebooting from fruition-NS. It was not like down-shifting from one jhana to another. And it doesn't seem like that would happen from an exit to a hard formless jhana to a soft one.. though again I have limited experience with really hard ones.
In short: the entrance was different (in kind, not only intensity, as far as I can tell) from formless jhanas I'd experienced before, the experience was different (in kind, not only intensity, as far as I can tell) from formless jhanas I'd experienced before, and the exit was different (in kind, not only intensity, as far as I can tell) from formless jhanas I'd experienced before.
Sutta-wise, the only two arguments I can make are: one, it's called the cessation of perception and feeling, not the cessation of the five aggregates, or the cessation of mind (as a general term for the 5 aggregates), etc. It's remarkably specific - why those 2 aggregates only? Second, about one who is in the cessation of perception and feeling it is said his "faculties are bright & clear" (
Kamabhu Sutta) or "his faculties are exceptionally clear" (
MN43), which seems hard to say about fruition-NS where there is no experience whatsoever. In that state I certainly felt (using the term loosely) brighter + clearer than at any other point I can remember.
Not sure if you can offer any insight on my descriptions, but I'd welcome any analysis.