How to do the jhanas

It is not even access concentration the Jhana 1 description. It is "just" the natural joy that arises from doing wholesome states like ethical behavior or generosity or unconditional love. (Which is good! Really good! just lets not appropriate the term 'jhana')

It is great people are discovering that there is a happiness within that is not dependent on getting things or things being a certain way and you can increase and cultivate wholesome states that are outside the sensory world. But the sort of description of so called "jhana" in the article misses it - it points to the feelings generated in the body. They are rather like a boat and its wake... the wake is the feelings but the boat is something else - they are the wholesome states. We don't focus on the feelings, rather keep driving the boat (focusing on our meditation object). Then ... boom... we suddenly hit a river bank and have no idea what happened. It's unmistakable. For instance with metta the boat would be the intention "may I be happy" the feelings are the by-product or wake. Jhana is proper like a boat that suddenly unexpectedly hits the shore... It rocks and blows the mind (and as the mind contains model of the world - it feels like the world shook a bit then froze). A good "geeks guide" is "Mindfulness Bliss and Beyond" written by someone who finished a physics degree at cambridge and spent 9 years with Ajahn Chah.

If we instead mistake something else for "jhana" like some positive feels, we're going to be stuck cultivating a local maxima. It's not to say the practice is wrong, it's actually quite good. It's just not jhana. We should listen to the professional community just like we listen to the professionals of physics in academia, instead of some posts from people on the internet that have done a few 30 day retreats.

But please do not call it jhana and have some humility ... these terms are central to some of the okdest institutions in the world and theres a professional community in the dharmic traditions who literally do this full time all over asia.

If someone wants to hear a competent speaker who has done the necessary time and training at those institutions and is also trained in the conventional university system, someone like Ajahn Brahm (Theoretical Physics Cambridge) Beth Upton (Economics Cambridge) or Shalia Catherine or Sayadaw U Jagara

One of the interesting insights into society at large is that one of the big divisions of knowledge is into the pots of "benefits others that you know this" and "other". There is a lot of social effort put into spreading political memes (as the easiest example) because that will influence society in a way that is favourable to the meme-er. Ditto a lot of commercially useful skills are spread because it is in everyone's interests that businessmen are competent. Messages of peace, kindness and (ironically) war get a lot of play because they are all helpful in various ways if other people know about them.

Reading up on the jhanas they are clearly a very real, very distinct thing. But they aren't obviously to the benefit of anyone except the practitioner and it is practically impossible to verify if someone has actually experienced them. So they drop out of the conversation pretty quickly unless they are attached to something else (this is a large part of the genius of Buddhism and other religions, attaching good ideas to social rites).

Jhanas are distinctive states reached when you do concentration meditation deeply. Like, when you go this deep you'll see this weird thing. And when you get this deep you see this other weird thing, and so on. I've gotten to the third or thereabouts.

But that was when I was really into concentration meditation. (And believe you me, there is real magic there).

These days I do the other thing (vipassana. Dry. That is to say, without concentration meditation prep).

I've been meditating pretty consistently for the last year 20 min meditations or more every day and though I've put way more than the time the OP put in trying to achieve jhanas I couldn't even reach the first one. I wonder what I'm missing!

Please take care. There's the "dark night of the soul". Everybody is different. I and my wife experienced something similar to this phenomenon but my wife decades (!) earlier than me and she was completely alone. She had meditation therapy because of her cerebral palsy and when she fell into the night dark nobody understood her. I learnt a lot from her experience. Today I explain it like this: If you realize that everything is empty you lose ground. I and my wife are not experienced meditators and both stumbled upon it by accident separately and not at the same time.

What hit both of us hard is: if even being good and doing good things is empty then what's the point? Your dark night of the soul is probably different, so it does not make sense to tell too much about our experience.

The only thing I want to tell you: If you are going to meditate, you'll probably need help at some time. If someone supports, understands and loves you, this could be perhaps enough. If you see someone meditating needing help, try to help.

This said, it is better if you have an experienced person helping you, but if not, a good, understanding friend is better than nobody. Don't be afraid and start meditating anyway. Just keep in mind that not many people talk about the dark night of the soul and so most meditators in the West are completely blindsided.

If this happens to you, take rest and look for an helpful friend.

EDIT: added the last sentence.

On one hand, my brain kinda shuts off when people start applying structure to spirituality.

On the other hand, doing an extensive search amongst possible head spaces you can occupy is a no-brainer for a consciousness implemented on a primate.

> But with just over 20 hours of practice, I progressed through all nine jhanic states.

This is simply not true.

It would be silly to deny that the author had some particular experience(s), but author absolutely did not have the described (quoted) experience.

This "words have whatever meaning I decide they have" world goes absolutely nowhere productive or useful. I'd love it if you all would stop doing it.

I was ten years into Vipassana before trying the Jhanas and found them challenging. two years practising, I eventually got them. I found leigh brasingtons stuff very useful on it, though I think he was born with the "concentration" ability somewhat, while others like me have to struggle harder to get there. https://www.leighb.com/sitemap.htm

he also had a clinical study done while he went into the jhana states that is worth a look. that can be found here - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3659471/

Oh spirituality. The only thing that I spent years of life trying to understand and ended up realizing that there's nothing to understand. It sounds corny and cliche but there's no other way I can put it.

I have/had meditated for almost 5 years of my life for almost 2 hours a day(unless I am traveling/or sick etc), so I think I am experienced enough to help beginner meditators. Also being from a Sanskrit-derived-language speaking country, I can read Pali and Sanskrit texts without translation.(Being from a SA country doesn't mean anyone can do that obviously. My family was more religious than others I guess). I am not beating my own drums but I have to put in some credibility to be taken seriously on the Internet. I really have no other credibility to put forward than this so please take my advice with a grain of salt because I am not an enlightened man like the religious scripts depict.

If you are a beginner, forget Jhanas and these tricks. They are just there to confuse you more. The wanting of stages of Jhanas are actually a hindrance. Buddha has warned about it. But his warning has been treated like a footnote. But in modern context, the warning should be the introduction. Because people can rarely deal with any discomfort these days. They've read the Jhanas, they want it now. I am almost 45% sure we will see a AI for Jhanas in the next 50 years.

Anyways, here's my advice for beginners:

When you start meditation, sooner or later, maybe even after a day or two, you'll eventually feel a state of peace. It is bound to happen, you will just have to take words of countless meditation literature and gurus and see for yourself. And the peace will be short-lived. Then, you will want to extend this peace. You've read about the Jhanas, the bliss, the peace, the oneness, and all. But it's not working for you right? Because you have been fooled again.

Previously, you were chasing for drugs/media/TikTok/girls/whatever or some other forms of pleasure/happiness and now you are chasing for the bliss, the peace, whatever the texts say or you've been told. It's the same thing. You are still chasing, you are still desiring. The object of desire is "Jhanas" now but it's still a desire and in desiring there is going to be mental conflict and hopelessness and feeling of losing because obviously you desire only the things you don't have.

The best advice I would give to a beginner meditator, is to be interested. Become interested in the process of meditation, forget the happiness, the results. Oh spoiler alert, you will actually feel like you are being more sadder after you started meditating. You will feel like you are noticing more problems, more issues with the society/beings etc. You aren't becoming sadder or the world is not sadder, you are noticing the sadness that was always there. Let it ride, enjoy the process. Don't treat meditation like a chore like I did. Be really interested. You have to be interested because it's a lifetime work. Your brain is neuroplastic so it's been addicted to patterns and habits from your birth to now. Don't expect to change them in a single meditation session. It's okay to meditate for 5 minutes a day and 2 hours the next day or miss it for weeks. Do it when you feel like it and when you are genuinely interested and curious, you'll just come back to it more and more without needing to force yourself to discipline and hate the word "meditation" in the process. Unless you are genuinely interested you will never surrender to meditation and unless you let go, you will never allow "Jhanas" to appear, because remember everything appears in emptiness.

https://medium.com/@rogerthis/lets-talk-nirodha-samapatti-in... is another good discussion I've found describing the experiences of the jhanas

Is "jhana" a separate word or just a alternate spelling (if I may, an incorrect one) for "dhyana" which means mental focus / meditation?

(I am referring to the Sanskrit word which is also the root for many indian language words that mean the same -- dhyaan in Hindi, or dhyaanam in Telugu)

$1000+ for an online meditation retreat from a few guys with only a few years experience.

Everything I hate about capitalism. How to take something beautiful and turn it into a cash cow :(

"Prior to attempting the jhanas, I’d guess that I had maybe 30 hours of lifetime meditation experience, scattered over a decade or more: in other words, not much. But with just over 20 hours of practice, I progressed through all nine jhanic states."

Okay, after that passage I stopped reading, as the author clearly doesn't know what they are talking about. The truth is, people devote their entirely lives living as monastics and still not reach Jhanas (although there are many other benefits, and the life of a monk/nun does take you closer to getting there). In fact, many respectable monks teach that Jhanas are pretty much the end of the Path. From there it is just a small step left to final Liberation.

Yes, I am aware of "Jhana lite", as taught by some lay teachers. But those are certainly not the real thing. Real Jhanas are incredibly profound and powerful states that are worth exploring and understanding, devoting a life to, even. But please get your information from a reputable sources (eg. Ajahn Brahm certainly knows what he's talking about). Not a random person on the internet with "just over 20 hours of practice".

A question for those familiar with jhanas. How would physical discomfort affect your ability to meditate? What if you had a headache? What if you had brainfog because of lack of sleep?

I first heard about these from Slate Star Codex and I wonder if anyone else here did. I can't remember exactly which post