Below are the discussion questions prepared by our volunteer facilitator, Steve Band, for the IMC-Lewes Dharma Study Group on Monday, June 1, 2026. These questions cover Chapter 15: When the Dance Ends, Freedom Begins from Dancing With Life: Buddhist Insights for Finding Meaning and Joy in the Face of Suffering by Phillip Moffitt.

This page has been set up for printing and use during the discussion. You can print this post (and save it as a PDF if you wish), or download the original PDF.

1. This chapter is about realizing cessation, the cessation of suffering. On page 173 Moffitt says, “…practicing cessation calls for a more subtle level of mindfulness than the practices that have preceded it, and this can take time to develop.”
   1. How is realizing cessation different from abandoning clinging?
   2. Do we realize cessation all at once or little by little?
   3. Do you feel like you are starting to realize cessation?
2. On page 174 Moffitt says, “to investigate cessation requires that your mind be concentrated and steadfast in the face of difficulty and that you be dispassionate and detached when rapture and altered states arise…when your mind becomes still and concentrated you will sometimes experience altered mind states, including rapture, euphoria, and a sense of peace. These states can be so wonderful that you get attached to them and strive to re-create them rather than go on in your practice.” There is a lot to unpack here.
   1. Have you experienced altered mind states, such as rapture, euphoria, or peace? Anyone want to share personal experience about this?
   2. If we are dispassionate and detached, how do we enjoy these altered states? Can we enjoy them and be dispassionate and detached at the same time? Is it okay to enjoy them?
   3. Is it okay to want to replicate them? Is it possible to replicate them?
   4. If so, how do we differentiate wanting the experience again and becoming attached to it, or attached to the wanting? Anyone want to share personal experience?
3. Moffitt describes a number of different ways to practice realizing cessation.
   • One method is to train your mind whenever it is not engaged in a specific task to automatically rest in awareness of breath and body sensations.
   • Another method is to maintain mindfulness and to train your mind to automatically note the arising and passing of pleasant and unpleasant feelings in whatever task you are doing.
   • A third method is to note pleasant and unpleasant arising in the minds of others and to see that these too are temporary and will pass.
   • A fourth method is to reflect on arising and passing or cessation during meditation.
   • Finally, Moffitt reminds us that cessation of clinging often happens spontaneously with our simple recognition of it. Merely bringing awareness to clinging in the moment and observing what happens to the clinging when we bring awareness to it is another practice we can use.
   1. Which method have you practiced, and how has it worked for you?
   2. Which method would you like to try?
4. On pages 180–181, Moffitt says that disenchantment is necessary and natural. He describes his own loss of attraction to things that ordinarily give him pleasure.
   1. Disenchantment is different from detachment or dispassion. What is the difference between disenchantment and depression?
   2. Is disenchantment a stage one goes through, beginning the stage and working through it and then moving on, or does one experience disenchantment periodically, here and there?
   3. Have you experienced disenchantment? What was that like? Anyone want to share your experience?

5. Everything is Burning. Moffitt writes, “Nothing in this world can exist without movement or vibration, and all movement involves vibration… Like a fish that doesn’t know it lives in water, you live in a world that is a composite of temporary, vibrating phenomena, therefore you may not have developed the necessary detachment to see its true nature…”

   “This blindness to the basic conditions of this realm is the root cause of your unease with life and that the cessation of this blindness or delusion will bring you freedom… All these components of seeing that the Buddha is describing aggregate into full-blown consciousness and you know ‘this is a flower.’ Every component is burning.”

   “If your mind becomes reactive and you want the flower, then the burning turns into a bonfire.” Pg. 182–183

   1. These are startling and profound statements. How do you understand this?
   2. Has anyone had the experience that all things are burning?
   3. Only pure awareness has no movement and is free of burning. What does this mean to you?

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