cessation (part 2)

By Ajahn Amaro
The concept of cessation is sometimes put forth as some event that we’re all seeking, where all experience will vanish and then we’ll be fine. A story from the time of the Buddha might help to expand our understanding of what cessation means. One night while the Buddha was meditating, a brilliant and beautiful devatā named Rohitassa appeared in front of him. He told the Buddha, “When I was a human being, I was a spiritual seeker of great psychic power, a sky walker. Even though I journeyed for 100 years to reach the end of the world, with great determination and resolution, I could not come to the end of the world. I died on the journey before I had found it. So, can you tell me, is it possible to journey to the end of the world?

And the Buddha replied, “It is not possible to reach the end of the world by walking, but I also tell you that unless you reach the end of the world, you will not reach the end of suffering.” Rohitassa was a bit puzzled and said, “Please explain this to me, Venerable Sir.” The Buddha replied, “In this very fathomlong body is the world, the origin of the world, the cessation of the world, and the way leading to the cessation of the world.” (A 4.45, S 2.26) The world, “loka,” means the world as we experience it through sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, thought, emotion, feeling. That’s what “the world” is—my world, your world. It’s not the abstracted, geographical planet, universe-type world. It’s the direct experience of the planet, the people, and the cosmos. Here is the origin of the world, the cessation of the world, and the way leading to the cessation of the world.

He said that as long as we create “me and my experience”— “me in here” and “the world out there”—we’re stuck in the world of subject and object. Then there is dukkha. And the way leading to the cessation of that duality is the way leading to the cessation of suffering. Geographically, it is impossible to journey to the end of the world. It’s only when we come to the cessation of the world, which literally means the cessation of its otherness, its thingness, will we reach the end of dukkha, unsatisfactoriness. When we stop creating sense objects as absolute realities and stop seeing thoughts and feelings as solid things, there is cessation.

To see that the world is within our minds is one way of working with these principles. The whole universe is embraced when we realize that it’s happening within our minds. And in that moment when we recognise that it all happens here, it ceases. Its thingness ceases, its otherness ceases. Its substantiality ceases.

This is just one way of talking and thinking about it. But I find this brings us much closer to the truth, because in that respect, it’s held in check. It’s known. But there’s also the quality of its emptiness. Its insubstantiality is known. We’re not imputing solidity to it, a reality that it doesn’t possess. We’re just looking directly at the world, knowing it fully and completely.

So, what happens when the world ceases? I remember one time Ajahn Sumedho was giving a talk about this same subject. He said, “Now I’m going to make the world completely disappear. I’m going to make the world come to an end.” He just sat there and said: “Okay, are you ready? . . . The world just ended. . . Do you want me to bring it back? Okay. . . welcome back.”

Nothing was apparent from the outside. It all happens internally. When we stop creating the world, we stop creating each other. We stop imputing the sense of solidity that creates a sense of separation. Yet we do not shut off the senses in any way. Actually, we shed the veneer, the films of confusion, of opinion, of judgment, of our conditioning, so that we can see the way things really are. At that moment, dukkha ceases. This is what we can call the experience of rigpa. There is knowing. There is liberation and freedom. There is no dukkha.