The Meaning of Cessation | Setting in Motion the Dharma Wheel

True cessation is not the process of ending suffering, true cessation is a state of complete realization. It means having completely terminated emotional affliction and having fully realized the path; it is liberation from the causes and the effects of suffering, and it is a state where there are no more outflows–the root defilements of craving, becoming, and ignorance that keep us in samsara, the cycle of birth and death.

The cause of suffering is resistance to suffering and trying to escape tribulation. We help ourselves when we can find meaning in our suffering and allow ourselves to live through our difficulties, when we can understand and accept suffering as the result of our own thoughts and actions. To the degree that we recognize the causes of suffering and really experience their effects, we achieve a kind of liberation, and we have begun to be free from it.

As an analogy if you are not relaxed when you sit in meditation your legs and back may hurt. In this case the cause is your body taking a meditation posture; the effect is discomfort. So you have the both cause and the effect of suffering. But if you find value in meditation, then to a degree you will free yourself from the discomfort of sitting. Not that the discomfort will go away, but you will not try to escape or resist, and your mind is already liberated. This is just an analogy, but you can say this is a kind of cessation of suffering.

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