n and conceptualization" and an "altered state of consciousness" (xiv). Yet the character of the alteration is difficult to grasp. On one hand, meditation is plainly an intentional exercise with a definite objective. On the other, the content of the objective is ipso facto unknown, if the enlightenment will alter consciousness. Meanwhile, to cease sensation and contemplation anticipates that successful enlightenment will indeed dispense with physical or even psychological care about whether the physical and psychological are extant. Griffiths continues:
The canonical definitions of the condition denoted by the term 'attainment of cessation' make it clear that no mental events--and thus by extension only physical events--occur when any given individual is in this state. How then is it that the stream of mental events (brought to a halt by the meditative techniques which produce the attainment of cessation) can begin once again when there exist only physical events from which they can arise? (Griff
...