I listened to this talk recently, by Guy Armstrong, titled "Bodhisattva Path: Plus Rigpa & Nirvana"
http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/79/talk/2440/I found it quite fascinating. The interesting bit starts around the 16:00 minute mark or so, wherein Guy expounds on his understandings of the concept of nibbana/nirvana from the perspective of a couple of different traditions.
What makes it so interesting is that these descriptions are the (common) models most Buddhist practitioners use for their own conceptions of enlightenment/nibbana/nirvana.
How much of our experiences then get colored by this?For a Theravadan practitioner in the style of the Mahasi Sayadaw, nibbana is the cessation, wherein all four of the mental aggregates cease. There's the 'winking out' followed by a 'reboot.' Mahasi's Progress of Insight was in turn informed by Abhidhamma/Visuddhimaga studies and descriptions.
For a Thai forest practitioner like Ajahn Maha Boowa, however, 'awareness' (what I understand to be our meta-cognitive sense of 'that which is aware') never disappears. There's no evidence of cessation in the form that the Progress of Insight might suggest.
The question that it brings up for me is: how extensively do we incline and move our minds based on what we've read, heard, studied, etc? If it affects something as substantive as the experience of awakening/enlightenment/the unconditioned/the deathless, who's to say it's not affecting every move we make along
any path or any point on a path.