according to the Mahayana presentation, this is the absorption practiced by the Shravakas and Pratyekabuddhas as a means of gaining contentment in the course of their present existence. It involves the cessation of the sense consciousnesses and the defiled emotional consciousness. Bodhisattvas also enter this absorption, not, however, as an end in itself, but as a method of training in concentration.
["The absorption of the insensate and the formless gods and that of the cessation enjoyed by Shravakas and Pratyekabuddhas are similar in that both are characterized by a halting of the sense consciousnesses in the alaya, the fundamental level of the mind. They are, however, different in that the absorption of the insensate gods does not involve the cessation of the defiled emotional consciousness (nyon yid), whereas the cessation of the Shravakas and Pratyekabuddhas does. For this reason, ordinary beings can only enter the absorption of nonperception, while the absorption of cessation is the preserve of Shravakas and Pratyekabuddhas, practitioners of the Hinayana. Moreover, non-Buddhist traditions mistakenly regard the formless absorptions as liberation and train in them as their spiritual path. The Shravakas and Pratyekabuddhas enter the absorption of cessation for the sake of contentment during their present lifetime. Sublime Bodhisattvas, by contrast, may enter it as an expedient, simply as a means of training in concentration." [YG I, 188] P.441]
[The eighth perfect freedom is the freedom of cessation, an experience possible for Aryas who have attained the four samadhis of form, together with the four formless absorptions, and who have arrested the seven consciousnesses together with all mental factors. For such beings, only the alaya is manifest. They can now abide in the absorption wherein there is neither perception nor feeling. Thus they abide in the absorption of cessation. . . . appendix 9 P.432]
[TPQ, 2010]