In Theravada Buddhism, at the final stage of enlightenment, the arahant or Buddha can enter Parinirvana ( final liberation) through a meditative State called Ni

In Theravada Buddhism, at the final stage of enlightenment, the arahant or Buddha can enter Parinirvana ( final liberation) through a meditative State called Niroda Samapatti at will. In this uninterruptible meditative state of mind and body , the meditative State can last any desirable amount of time but up if one didn't rise up by 7th day, the one is considered liberated. I had witness first hand while attending to care my mentor head monk's last moments who was 92 years old . In our tradition , enlightened one notifies his yogis if he decides to enter Final Niroda Samapatti, if nobody protests, he can enter. He notified first time while he was 90 years old, at that time he is very healthy, can still teach meditation well. At his first notification, followers beg him not to so, he continues then at 91 years old he started to fall sick and need to attend hospital, for the first time in his life. At the hospital then he notified for second time, but followers cried, beg him not to. Also he met a lot of new potential yogi which he wanted to train meditation who are nurses and doctors who cared for him so he decided to wait till they can join meditation center. He said many of them could be enlightened, he mentored them as soon as he was discharged for 2 months, and then he fell sick again , this time his kidney is failing, he have UTI and need dialysis. After dialysis ,all his vitals are good, heart rate fine, pressure is fine , he is well conscious, then he ordered all non-monk followers to leave hospital. Only doctor couple who are deciples and 11 monk , who are his disciples meditation mentors , who going to become his successors and after leaving them messages he entered Niroda Samapatti ,the doctor observed his pressure and heart rate was all fine and then after a few minutes of meditation they all drop to zero, they were ordered not to disturb or revive his meditation. He entered final liberation peacefully. He was carried back to his monastery and kept there 7 days, which the max days a enlightened being can enter Niroda Samapatti state.After that is considered one had permanently liberated. Before he entered Niroda state, He ordered that after 7th day he can be cremated. For whole 7 day I had been there. And his body only started to decompose after 7th days. Followers still want to wait and protested cremation on 7th day so we had to wait till 14th day. This is final goal of Buddhism, the ultimate end of suffering on own term, peacefully. https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100235320;jsessionid=6466CA46CFD6DE750818185BFC8A024D https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority... https://www.palikanon.com/english/wtb/n_r/nirodha_samaapatti.htm https://www.palikanon.com/english/wtb/n_r/nirodha_samaapatti...