And a very similar description on Vipassanadhura:What the meditator has experienced is the total cessation of the mind-body process. He did not "know" this while it was happening., because there was no sense of a mind to know it. All he "knows" about the experience is his reflection on what has just happened. This reflection is the final nana, the knowledge of review (paccavekkhana-nanaquote]
Does anyone know if this is a standard description? Or of a classical example describing it in similar terms?2. Anuloma nana is the last nana in which there is anything happening. After that there is no awareness of anything. Feeling and awareness suddenly cease. It is like a person who is walking along a road and suddenly falls down a hole. The object and the mind which is trying to acknowledge the object both cease to function in the state of nibbana. This cessation is called "gotrabhu nana." This state of wisdom encompasses the cessation of awareness and form.
3. After gotrabhu nana has lasted a moment, that is termed magga nana. Upon realizing this stage (magga nana) one experiences a feeling of surprise. One is completely happy and at ease. No state of worldly happiness can compare with this realization.
Is it this, from the Visuddhimagga?
Does that more or less say the same thing? A moment where the mind ceases to function at all?...then his consciousness
no longer enters into or settles down on or resolves upon any field of formations
at all, or clings, cleaves or clutches on to it, but retreats, retracts and recoils as
water does from a lotus leaf...
Here is a larger section from the Buddhanet section:
Here is what I believe is the relevant section from the Visuddhimagga:...knowledge of path and result (maggaphala-nana). In practice, what happens is that the meditator is practicing, every aspect of his meditation is subtle, clear and bright, and then suddenly there is a sense of falling-into (knowledge of insight leading to emergence) and then the lights go out. There is a momentary sense of nothingness, and then the lights come on. If the meditator checks the watch, he realises some time has passed - depending on the strength of his concentration, this could be anything from a few minutes to a few days and he has "awoken" suddenly into a situation in which the practice is continuing, but the experience is much less subtle than before. The meditator is now in the knowledge of arising and passing away (udayabbaya-nana).
16) Knowledge of review - paccavekkhana-nana
What happened? Has he fallen asleep? No, because of the suddenness and clarity of the beginning and end of the experience of unconsciousness, and because there has been absolutely no physical movement. What the meditator has experienced is the total cessation of the mind-body process. He did not "know" this while it was happening., because there was no sense of a mind to know it. All he "knows" about the experience is his reflection on what has just happened. This reflection is the final nana, the knowledge of review (paccavekkhana-nana).
The journey of Insight: from normal experience, to increasing subtlety of experience, to the most subtle experience of all - the cessation of experience.
[THE FIRST PATH—FIRST NOBLE PERSON]
3. Herein, nothing further needs to be done by one who wants to achieve,
firstly, the knowledge of the first path. For what he needs to do has already been
done by arousing the insight that ends in conformity knowledge.
4. As soon as conformity knowledge has arisen in him in this way, and the
thick murk that hides the truths has been dispelled by the respective force peculiar
to each of the three kinds of conformity (see XXI.129f.), then his consciousness
no longer enters into or settles down on or resolves upon any field of formations
at all, or clings, cleaves or clutches on to it, but retreats, retracts and recoils as
water does from a lotus leaf, and every sign as object, every occurrence as object,
appears as an impediment.
5. Then, while every sign and occurrence appears to him as an impediment,
when conformity knowledge’s repetition has ended, change-of-lineage
knowledge arises in him, which takes as its object the signless, nonoccurrence, non-formation, cessation, Nibbána,—which knowledge passes
out of the lineage, the category, the plane, of the ordinary man and enters the
lineage, the category, the plane, of the Noble Ones,—which, being the first
adverting, the first concern, the first reaction, to Nibbána as object, fulfils the
state of a condition for the path in six ways, as proximity, [673] contiguity,
repetition, decisive-support, absence, and disappearance conditions,—which
is the culminating peak of insight,—which is irrevocable,—of which it is said:
“How is it that understanding of emergence and turning away from the
external1 is change-of-lineage knowledge?
“It overcomes arising, thus it is change-of-lineage. It overcomes occurrence …
[the sign … accumulation … rebirth-linking … destiny … generation … rearising … birth … ageing … sickness … death … sorrow … lamentation … ]. It
overcomes despair, thus it is change-of-lineage. It overcomes the sign of
formations externally, thus it is change-of-lineage.
“It enters into2
non-arising, thus it is change-of-lineage. It enters into nonoccurrence, thus it is change-of-lineage … (etc.) … It enters into non-despair,
thus it is change-of-lineage. It enters into cessation, Nibbána, thus it is changeof-lineage.
“Having overcome arising, it enters into non-arising, thus it is change-oflineage …” (Paþis I 56) and so on, all of which should be quoted.
1.1. “‘Of emerging and turning away from the external’: it is the understanding of turning
away that is being effected, which turning away is emergence from the field of
formations; it is termed external because the unformed element’s existence is external”
(Vism-mhþ 866). The unformed element (=Nibbána) is classed as “external” under
the internal (ajjhattika) triad of the Abhidhamma Mátiká (see Dhs 2 and p. 241).