The Differences among Cessation Attainment, Non-Perception Attainment, and Neither-Perception-Nor-Non-Perception Attainment

In the samādhi of no-perception (asaṃjñi-samāpatti), the six consciousnesses are absent, but all five universally operative mental factors of the manas are fully present. In the cessation samāpatti (nirodha-samāpatti), the six consciousnesses are absent, and of the manas' mental factors, feeling and perception have ceased. If one is not a great arhat who is liberated in both ways and has eradicated all afflictions, it is impossible to enter the cessation samāpatti. The samādhi of no-perception is a non-Buddhist samādhi; the person within that samādhi still takes the material body as the self, with the view of self not eradicated.

For beings in the heaven of neither perception nor non-perception (naivasaṃjñānāsaṃjñāyatana), a portion of the five universally operative mental factors of the mind consciousness has been eliminated, so the mind consciousness is in a state of being half-present and half-absent. This still differs from the beings of the heaven of no-perception, who have a material body but no mind consciousness at all.