The cessation of the identification with the sufferer always comes first. For in order for the suffering to end, it must be experienced, and the dis-identification with the sufferer is necessary in order to allow the sufferer to continue experiencing their suffering until there’s nothing left. When the identification with the sufferer ceases, the identity moves to the formless, which is usually called awareness, consciousness, God or love. Calling this state enlightenment is technically correct, there’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s not the complete and unsurpassed enlightenment of Gautama. It is much more precise to say that it’s merely the beginning of the true spiritual path, an awakening. It is also technically correct to call such individual a Buddha.

I personally prefer to neither call it enlightenment, nor call such an individual a Buddha. I call the cessation of identification with the sufferer self-realization, and I call such an individual a self-realized individual. It is a matter of personal preference, but it seems much more precise to me, much more clear. It is also often times called the state of abiding awareness.

The cessation of the identification with the sufferer is equivalent to entering the 5th body, the first authentically non-dual body, the spiritual body.

The cessation of the suffering itself happens much later, it is equivalent to entering the 7th body, the Nirvanic body. Whereas in the 5th body the ego still exists, just dis-identified with, the ego ceases to exist completely in the Nirvanic body. Thus one enters true Nirvana, and reaches the level of enlightenment of Gautama Buddha, becomes a Tathagata.

The only last step after that is to return to Samsara and become an ordinary person once again, the most mundane human being, just one who doesn’t suffer. The sufferer is no more, the suffering is no more, enlightenment is no more, all is forgotten, all was just a game of mind, the journey of no meaning, and only the most ordinary, mundane, real life remains. Nirvana is not something out of this world, it never has been. Nirvana is basically Samsara in serenity, Samsara without suffering. There’s no running away from life. That is what I personally call enlightenment, and that’s what the last picture in the famous 10 bulls of Zen is truly about.

This is the stateless state. Once reached, no other states are possible.