The Difference Between the Cessation Attainment, the Attainment of No-Perception, and the Attainment of Neither-Perception-Nor-Non-Perception

In the samādhi of no-perception (asaṃjñā-samāpatti), the six consciousnesses are absent, yet all five universally operating mental factors of the manas remain present. In the cessation samāpatti (nirodha-samāpatti), the six consciousnesses are absent, and of the manas' mental factors, feeling and perception have ceased. Unless one is a great arhat who has attained liberation in both ways and severed all afflictions, it is impossible to enter the cessation samāpatti. The samādhi of no-perception is a heterodox samādhi; the person within that samādhi still takes the physical body as the self, with self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi) not severed.

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