This question came up in the Online 10-day Retreat Nov 3, 2020, guided by Delson Armstrong. Day 6 was part of a daily 30-minute discussion on the suttas, the Dhamma talk and reflections.
Not every Cessation will be followed by Nibbāna, especially in the case of an anāgāmi [who can, after practicing, enter Cessation at will for a long time].
What’s important to see is the contact with the Nibbāna element. You don’t require Cessation to attain Nibbāna. Nibbāna can occur from the first jhana onwards. If you can be in a state where you are completely letting go and not grasping onto anything, not grasping onto any of the Formations that create the factors of the jhana, you can attain Nibbāna from that point on.
And then of course, there are cases in the suttas where there are beings who attain arahantship by just merely listening and reflecting deeply on the Dhamma. So, Nibbāna can happen even without Cessation.
[Comment]
To add to that, in the Therīgāthā and the Theragāthā, which are suttas from the earliest arahant nuns and monks, often they see for instance a bucket with water falling over and seeing the water flow out, they attain arahantship. I’m guessing they are in a permanent meditative state with that, but it’s not always in sitting meditation.
[Answer]
Exactly, that is true. And just to round out what you just said regarding just seeing something and being able to reflect on it without having to be in sitting meditation, in the case of beings like Bahiya [Ud 1.10] who went to the Buddha and just by listening to the Buddha’s discourse on not self, and seeing not self in any aspect of the seeing and the cognizing and so forth, he was able to let go of all his attachments, let go of all the defilements, and then attain arahantship.
So, there are different ways that this can happen. It’s not just precluded by Cessation.
