Lightly edited transcript Filler words and caption errors removed by machine; the meaning is unchanged.
Delson explains nirodha-samapatti, usually translated as the cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness, in which concepts, bare sensations and awareness all stop. He says it is reached only after the preceding jhanas or levels of samadhi, and that it cannot be known subjectively until one comes out of it, which he links to nirvana. He also describes research on lowered heart rate, metabolism and blood pressure with longer periods, and says the purpose within meditation is to revitalize the senses so one attends more clearly to how reality works.
Key points
- Nirodha-samapatti is generally translated as the cessation of perception, feeling and consciousness, where concepts, sensations and awareness are no longer operating.
- Delson says it must be developed through the earlier jhana stages of samadhi, such as the infinite space and infinite consciousness states.
- In his usage, feeling means bare sensations received through the six senses rather than emotions, perception means memory and conceptual recognition, and consciousness means bare awareness of what is happening.
- He says the state cannot be known subjectively until one emerges, and that emerging from it is what he calls experiencing nirvana, an unconditioned state beyond karma.
- He reports that longer periods of the practice are associated in early research with lower heart rate, metabolism and blood pressure, and he notes researchers speculate about a link to hibernation-like processes, while stressing that within meditation the aim is revitalizing the senses.
Themes
Where this talk sits on the path
This talk speaks mostly to Cessation / DO seen.
The path runs from Foundations to Arahant; read at any point along it.
Transcript
Defining Nirodha-samapatti
Nirodha, very simply put, is a state. It has different contexts depending upon the usage, but in this context that we're referring to, it's a way of meditation in which everything kind of shuts down. And so it's like you go through. First you need to be able to develop those skills through the preceding stages of what are known as the jhanas, or the levels of samadhi that I had initially talked about, where you go into infinite space and infinite consciousness and so on. But Nirodha, or Nirodha-samapatti, is generally translated in English as the cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness. In this context, perception is basically memory, or the ability to recognize things, and the different conceptual ways of thinking.
Feeling is not our emotions. Feeling is all of the bare sensations that we have through the eyes, ears, nose, body, tongue, mind. And consciousness here is the bare knowledge of what is happening, the awareness of what is happening. And so in this state of Nirodha, what happens is all concepts just go away, all sensations stop or are no longer being received, and awareness switches off. I don't know that I've been in Nirodha, because you can't know it subjectively until you come out of it. And when you come out of it, you experience what's known as nirvana. And nirvana is basically a state, for lack of a better word, where the mind
experiences unconditional reality, the unconditioned, which is beyond karma, beyond the relative and the absolute. And the utility of this process of going into Nirodha is primarily to attain that state of nirvana, but also it gives total rest to the entire biology. Because this is what's being found out through the initial research that I had been conducted into at the Netherlands and at Harvard or Massachusetts General Hospital, which is that as you start to do this for longer periods of time, it actually lowers the heart rate, it lowers the metabolism, it lowers the blood pressure into where now the researchers are starting to speculate and starting to develop. They're developing a hypothesis that this might be tapping into some evolutionary, human evolutionary hibernation practice or process where we actually might even stop or slow down the process of decay of the cells and so on.
Because the heart rate starts to diminish, everything starts to diminish, the metabolism starts to diminish, so the cells have to work less for their energy and so on. That might be one of the case studies or case use cases of this practice. But within the context of meditation, within the context of mental development, the whole purpose is to revitalize the senses so that you are much more attentive and mindful to how reality actually works.