Thanks for your answers. I have no comment. I just wanna share the way it lives for me:
When in mediation thoughts (inner dialoque) can end, then i do surely not end, right? So, it is really true that i am not these thoughts. If during meditation all mental defilements end, (temporary) i surely do not end. So, as it actually is, i am not those mental defilements. If during meditation all gross volitional activity would end, such as plans and intentions, tendencies, i surely do not end. etc.
So how far can this proces of cessation go on? When do i dissappear? Does there come any moment?
In my opinion the Buddha discovered that mind can, in this very life, become completely free of whatever it normally perceives or experieces, such as thoughts, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness (seeing, hearing, smelling, sensing a body etc) and stil one does not end. One is not death, nor unconscious. It can all end and still we (mind) does not end.
So, i belief that’s why the Buddha teaches that, as it actually is, that we are not the khandha’s. It is not who we are, not our real self.
Oke, our daily self-views are based upon those khandha’s, sakkaya ditthi, but this is a wrong perception ourself. But it is a strong habit to belief things like ‘ i am the body, or ‘i am those plans’ or ‘those intentions or feeling are mine’ etc. The sutta’s describe such views as sakkaya ditthi.
So, i belief we can actually get the understanding that we are not the khandha’s, by experience.
Then one knows for sure: i do not need those to exist. Those are just mirror-images, not me, not mine, nor myself.
The key is…in daily life we are protection a false identity. And our daily habit to safeguard ourself is also based on that false identity-view.
A sotapanna feels safe, because he/she has seen her/his true face. No agression is needed anymore to safeguard oneself, no greed, no identification. One lets go. One does not face other people anymore in a certain identity-role. One has lost all defence. Siebe does not meet other people anymore as Siebe. Empty of self-views he/she is not defensive anymore.
This whole psychological proces of safeguarding oneself vanishes gradually. An arahant has eliminated it.
Breath-mediation is about calming mind en body which facilitates cessation and letting go. To experience cessation one has to be brave and wise. Brave because one looses known structures, one looses grip and mind does not like that.
I feel this is the real challenge we have to deal with. This cannot be learned from books. Gradually we have to become more and more brave and wise in letting go.
Siebe