Considering the cessation of experience, as nibbana, here's a list of quotes:
"'All phenomena have Unbinding as their final end.'
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"Yours alone is the eye, Evil One. Yours are forms, yours is the sphere of consciousness of contact at the eye. Where no eye exists, no forms exist, no sphere of consciousness & contact at the eye exists: there, Evil One, you cannot go. Yours alone is the ear... the nose... the tongue... the body... Yours alone is the intellect, Evil One. Yours are ideas, yours is the sphere of consciousness & contact at the intellect. Where no intellect exists, no ideas exist, no sphere of consciousness of contact at the intellect exists: there, Evil One, you cannot go."
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Ven. Sariputta was staying near Rajagaha in the Bamboo Grove, the Squirrels' Feeding Sanctuary. There he said to the monks, "This Unbinding is pleasant, friends. This Unbinding is pleasant."
When this was said, Ven. Udayin said to Ven. Sariputta, "But what is the pleasure here, my friend, where there is nothing felt?"
"Just that is the pleasure here, my friend: where there is nothing felt.
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"There is that dimension where there is neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor wind; neither dimension of the infinitude of space, nor dimension of the infinitude of consciousness, nor dimension of nothingness, nor dimension of neither perception nor non-perception; neither this world, nor the next world, nor sun, nor moon. And there, I say, there is neither coming, nor going, nor stasis; neither passing away nor arising: without stance, without foundation, without support [mental object]. This, just this, is the end of stress."
— Ud 8.1
"There is, monks, an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated. If there were not that unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, there would not be the case that emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated would be discerned. But precisely because there is an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated is discerned."
— Ud 8.3
There's no fire like passion,
no loss like anger,
no pain like the aggregates,
no ease other than peace.
Hunger: the foremost illness.
Fabrications: the foremost pain.
For one knowing this truth
as it actually is,
Unbinding
is the foremost ease.
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Where water, earth, fire, & wind have no footing:
There the stars do not shine,
the sun is not visible,
the moon does not appear,
darkness is not found.
And when a sage,
a brahman through sagacity,
has known [this] for himself,
then from form & formless,
from bliss & pain,
he is freed.
— Ud 1.10
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Now this idea that nibbana entails the cessation of experience is Buddhism 101. Every secondary school child in Sri Lanka knows this. It is a shame that the members on this forum are still struggling with it. In any case, let me offer a sutta which might offer some relief to those who are constipated by the aggregates and cant seem to let go...
"Now from the remainderless fading & cessation of that very
ignorance comes the cessation of fabrications. From the cessation of
fabrications comes the cessation of
consciousness. From the cessation of consciousness comes the cessation of
name-&-form. From the cessation of name-&-form comes the cessation of the
six sense media. From the cessation of the six sense media comes the cessation of
contact. From the cessation of contact comes the cessation of
feeling. From the cessation of feeling comes the cessation of
craving. From the cessation of craving comes the cessation of
clinging/sustenance. From the cessation of clinging/sustenance comes the cessation of becoming. From the cessation of
becoming comes the cessation of birth. From the cessation of birth, then aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair all cease. Such is the cessation of this entire mass of stress & suffering.
"This is the noble method that he (the steam entrant) has rightly seen & rightly ferreted out through discernment.
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The bits in
red are the elements pertaining to the removal of defilements. The bits in
green are the elements pertaining to the cessation of experience. Now the only way to reconcile these two strands of quotes from the suttas is to put them together, as seems to have happened in the paticca-nirodha sequence above. Then we can understand this in the following manner: through the removal of defilements, especially avijja, through breaking of the fetters, we come to attainment/vimutti -and the experience of that is complete cessation- a non-experience.
with metta
Matheesha