Not to cut off the howling fantods ... but ..

I really really enjoyed reading this thread over that last couple of days. There were just a couple things that came to mind that I thought I would share.
One is this snippet from the Culavedalla Sutta "Neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling is pleasant in occurring together with knowledge, and painful in occurring without knowledge." I think this is huge. It implies something like the Catholic's original sin - an Original Stress. Due to ignorance, even neutral feelings are painful. So our baseline state is painful. But after non-dual awakening from ignorance the baseline state can be pleasant. Of course, there is still the first arrow to create pain, and painful emotions will arise, and if we are not mindful we may grab at them instead of appreciating them. But it is possible for the basic stress of neutral feelings to cease.
The other thing was the discussion about nibbana, and cessation. I think the word 'experience' has two meanings here. One is the experience of sensation, and the other is the fabrication of that sensation into concepts. During a cessation both cease. But as others I think have said, nibbana need not be seen as the absence of sensation, only the absence of fabrication. Well, almost, anyway. Obviously our subconscious has to do some kind of fabrication so we can operate in the world, and recognise a chair as suitable for sitting in, or whiskey as suitable for drinking, to take two random examples. But I guess the key bit of fabrication that has to cease is the sense of subject and object, which is the grammar of the self and other, the narrative of existence. I mean that literally, as I think subject and object are inextricably tied up with the evolutionary psychology of self-identity, biographical recollection, autonesis, and maybe even with the foundations of mathematics and science.
So cessation, and the coming out of it might be:
When this ceases, that ceases. When this arises, that arises.
And nibbana might be:
When this no longer arises, that no longer arises. And this alone is the end of stress.
Although you could also put it the other way around ... when that no longer arises, this no longer arises.
Back to my whiskey now (sun's over the yardarm in my time zone).