what happens to the mind during meditation?

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This experience is called Asanna in Buddhist meditation. (see no 22 in the link) Please make sure you practice this meditation in conjunction with Vipassana meditation.It also advisable to practice meditation in conjunction with Noble Eightfold Path.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sagga/loka.html

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There are reports about something called nirodha-samāpatti, the so called 9th jhana, which is associated with Buddhahood and nirvana, though not identical to it.

With regard to the difference existing between the monk abiding in this state of extinction on the one hand, and a dead person on the other hand, M 43 says: "In him who is dead, and whose life has come to an end, the bodily (in-and-out breathing), verbal (thought-conception and discursive thinking), and mental functions (s. sankhāra, 2) have become suspended and come to a standstill, life is exhausted, the vital heat extinguished, the faculties are destroyed. Also in the monk who has reached 'extinction of perception and feeling' (saññā-vedayita-nirodha), the bodily, verbal and mental functions have been suspended and come to a standstill, but life is not exhausted, the vital heat not extinguished, and the faculties are not destroyed."

However, I personally believe that life depends on breathing. So I am almost entirely skeptical that even the Buddha could have achieved this bodily state.

I even found the claim here that:

Having attained the fourth absorption, inhalation and exhalation have ceased.

But given that appears in a discussion of 'feeling' and the prior cessation perhaps not a necessary component,

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This is uddhacca-hindrance.

Right concentrated consciousness, of ānapanassati-meditation, has only thinking of breath. Stopping of thinking is wrong of meditation. Stopping of breath is wrong, too, for a newbie.

To correct it, Focus back to breath. If you can find it, just focus on breath point at nose.

In pali canon, the buddha and commentary concern(paccavekkhaṇavasī) ānāpanassati-jhāna after meditation. They have not know the description of ānāpanassati-jhāna while still meditating. In contrast, they just know only breath while still meditating, non stop.

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The breath does not stop. What happens is the breath stops being an object of awareness because the breath calms but the mind remains too coarse or gross to be aware of the breath.

Here, the mind must let go more & be more quiet, until the mind can feel the breath again.

Trying to focus will not help because it is the very act of trying (to focus) that makes the mind too coarse or gross to know the breathing.

The supramundane path of the Buddha is only about letting go.

The Buddha taught supramundane meditation (jhana) is developed by making letting go (vossagga) the meditation object (SN 48.10; end of MN 118).

And what is the faculty of concentration? There is the case where a monk, a disciple of the noble ones, making it his object to let go (vossagga), attains concentration, attains singleness of mind. SN 48.10

There is the case where a monk develops mindfulness as a factor for awakening dependent on seclusion, dependent on dispassion, dependent on cessation, resulting in relinquishment (vossagga). MN 118

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