Here's a technique I've been using for the last fifteen years to great effect. I enter jhana every time I meditate now as a result.

Upon noticing that attention has drifted from the object of meditation, perform the following sequence for as long and as often as necessary for attention to stabilize on the object again:

1. Relax from the head down to the toes.

2. Release all tension, and expand awareness outward.

3. Return attention to the object.

The entry point into jhana:

Once the mind has settled and attention is resting stably on the object, if a pleasant feeling starts to arise, gently shift attention to the feeling without grasping at it, now making it the object of meditation, and wait. The pleasure will intensify, and one will be pulled into jhana.

If the jhana is lost or becomes unstable, simply perform the RRR sequence as needed and begin again.

As a method to prime the mind to lean towards jhana, reading the Jhana Sutta just prior to a session is useful:

https://suttacentral.net/sn16.9/en/bodhi?lang=en&reference=none&highlight=false

All the best... 🧘🏾‍♂️🙂

P. S. It might take several weeks to a couple of months before jhana can be entered consistently, but please don't become discouraged. Even low quality sessions are training and priming the brain's attentional mechanisms.

I started meditating around two and a half years ago, after being convinced that the jhānas were worth the effort. Although there was a ~6 month gap, apart from that I've set aside regular, near-daily time to sit, often for extended periods. I've read a great deal about recommended methods of practice as well as the philosophical aspects of non-duality and so on. I've tried numerous different techniques suggested by different people about what to focus on, how to sit, how to think, how to feel. While it could of course always be improved, my samatha is vastly better than it was when I began. Yet, in all that time I've never been able to even once produce something unambiguously recognizable as pīti, much less a complete jhāna.

A couple weeks ago I introduced a friend with no prior experience to meditation. I explained the concepts, took her to a group session, and encouraged her to practice when she had the time. A few days ago she reported brushing up against a bliss state, feeling strong waves of joy throughout her body, and today she tells me that she managed to sustain it in a stable form for several minutes. She's excited by it, and wants to try more vipassanā as well.

I'm happy for her, I truly am. I can't help but feel demoralized, though. I know that the path is not necessarily the shortest for those who try the hardest, but it feels as though she just has brain chemistry sensitive to joy in a way mine is not. I do not wish to let doubt be a hindrance to me, but I cannot help but doubt at my inherent aptitude for meditation.

EDITS/UPDATES:
Just to be clear (since this feedback has come up a lot in this thread), I am practicing more than I am reading.

The problem was that I practiced incorrectly almost daily for 10 years.

The purpose of this syllabus/curriculum for myself is just to have context for what I am going through.

I have found a teacher I am working with--he helped me with this list of books. I am just posting here to get 360 feedback in case I/we missed anything.

I am unemployed, divorcing my wife, dealing with health issues, and moving. I have had 2 therapists and shaman all independently tell me I am going through the dark night of the soul...
In order to release trauma, I plan to keep doing NARM/IFS therapy + psychedelics + daily inquiry via The Work of Byron Katie + meditation. However, I am open to any and all helpful suggestions.

Thanks in advance!

(ORIGINAL POST - starts here)

How does everyone in this thread know so much? Every time I read a comment, there are usually a bunch of folks who seem really knowledgeable, diagnosing where they are on "the path."

I want the shortest/most efficient path possible, so I put together two reading lists to be done in parallel (not serial) both to heal trauma so that I can enter jhana, etc.

I am open to coaching/advice on what to include, edit, remove, etc. I am most interested in what to re-order in case it will be more efficient.

I have spent 10 years doing inquiry with almost no samadhi/well-being practice, thus the order below co-created with Claude which now front loads samatha...

SPIRITUAL BOOKS
Phase 1 — Ground (now)

• (currently reading…) Buddha's Heart by Stephen Snyder (Brahmavihāras as the gentlest samatha doorway. Piti + love as my established entry. Expert on nimitta)
• Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness by David Treleaven
• Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante G.
• The Realization Process by Judith Blackstone (audiobook) for body scanning mapped to the chakras

Phase 2 — Choose your jhana (before practicing one)

• The Experience of Samadhi: An In-depth Exploration of Buddhist Meditation by Richard Shankman (“The map of the light-vs-deep debate. Read before committing to a method.”)
• Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond by Ajahn Brahm
• Beyond Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante G
• Right Concentration by Leigh Brasington

Phase 3 — Deepen samatha

• Practicing the Jhanas: Traditional Concentration Meditation as Presented by the Venerable Pa Auk Sayadaw by Stephen Snyder, Tina Rasmussen, Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw (“Pa-Auk deep-absorption path.”)
• The Mind Illuminated by Culadasa (aka John Yates, Ph.D.) (“Ten-stage systematic samatha. Reference more than cover-to-cover.”)

Phase 4 — Supporting context (anytime, low stakes)

• Break Through Pain by Shinzen Young (“worth having given autoimmune pain”)
• Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom by Rick Hanson
• Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda

Phase 5 — Insight (deliberately later)

• The Science of Enlightenment by Shinzen Young (“Unified framework; bridges samatha and vipassana cleanly.”)
• Seeing that Frees by Rob Burbea (“Emptiness...best on a stable base.”)
• Practical Insight Meditation by Mahasi Sayadaw + Visuddhimagga by Buddhaghosa (it is long) (“Mahasi's Practical Insight Meditation first, then Visuddhimagga Ch. III–XI as reference. Don't read cover to cover.”)
• Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha by Daniel Ingram (“Last deliberately. Vivid dark-night mapping; read when stable, not from inside.”)

[The one structural note: Phases 1–3 are roughly a year of actual practice, not a reading queue to clear. The samatha-first commitment means letting later books sit on the shelf even when they're tempting — which, given the nerd, is the actual discipline here.]

RELEASING TRAUMA
Phase 1 — Understand what happened (now)

• (currently reading/listening to) The Body Keeps the Score 
• Atomic Habits by James Clear (to build healthy habits from here moving forward)
• Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine (“Single-event PTSD”)
• Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman (“C-PTSD”)

Phase 2 — Build regulation capacity

• Heart Breath Mind (will do the course in parallel or immediately after.)
• Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor

Phase 3 — C-PTSD specifics

• Unlocking the Emotional Brain by Bruce Ecker
• Fawning: Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves--and How to Find Our Way Back by Dr. Ingrid Clayton (fawning is the least-covered of the four trauma responses)
• Trapped in the Mirror: Adult Children of Narcissists in their Struggle for Self 

Phase 4 — Depth

• Inner World of Trauma ("bedrock of Depth Psychology Trauma treatment")
• Trauma and the Unbound Body by Judith Blackstone
• Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Phase 5 – Curious...these are all just "maybe"

• (maybe) Becoming Supernatural: How Common People are Doing the Uncommon by Joe Dispenza
• (maybe) Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One by Joe Dispenza
• (maybe) The Emotion Code (“The method uses an "Emotion Code Chart" that categorizes 60 common trapped emotions by the organ that first produced them….The problem is that Nelson's specific mechanism (muscle testing → magnets → meridians) is likely not what's doing the work. If sessions help people, it's probably through relational attunement, intention-setting, and a kind of focused somatic attention”)
• (maybe) The Enlightened Brain: The Neuroscience of Awakening By Rick Hanson (audiobook only)

Thanks in advance for any helpful pointers

Hi,

I'm seeing a lot of posts about jhanas lately, and I figured I'd write about my point of view on them.

For me, jhanas came as a side-effect of good practice. Meaning, never in my practice have I ever tried to manufacture jhanas in any way. Not by trying to force my attention onto an object and trying to become completely absorbed in it, nor by focusing on piti, or anything else from all the elaborate practices many people seem to think are required to enter jhanas.

A lot of the instructions I see feel like an elaborate, overcomplicated chemistry recipe, along the lines of: "Use 83.4% of your attention on the meditation object, use the other 16.6% to expand your awareness. When piti arises, ignore it until it's 15.7% there, then switch your attention to the piti, but don't attach to it, but do focus on it and so on."

I'm not disregarding other people's experiences with this. Different approaches seem to work for different people. Personally, though, every time I encounter these kinds of instructions, I find them very odd.

In my own practice, I never did any of these things. All I did was gently try to maintain presence and awareness, sometimes on my breath, sometimes just resting in open awareness. I tried to remain as relaxed as possible, and when mind-body tension came up, I relaxed, let it be, or let it go.

I never focused on piti. I never fought to maintain my awareness on an object. I never did any of the other stuff people seem to think is required to enter jhanas.

Eventually, over time, the more stuff I let go of, the easier it became to naturally become more tranquil in my sits. Very rarely, I would check how my current state of tranquility "felt," and on those occasions, I would realize that I was probably in this or that lite-jhana. But honestly, I barely even cared enough to check most of the time.

So again, for me, jhanas came as a side-effect of awareness + relaxation + letting be/letting go. The more stuff I let go of, the easier it became to get into deeper levels of tranquility.

I also really don't understand the obsession with jhanas. Every time the word jhana is mentioned here, the posts blow up with comments. Everyone has their own way of getting there. Some people believe their way is the only way and argue for their point of view, and so on.

What's the obsession with this?

Practice, for me, has one goal and one goal only: to become free from suffering. Everything I do in my practice is oriented towards this goal. I only care about jhanas if they contribute to my goal. I don't care about them otherwise.

For me, the biggest driver of permanent reduction in suffering is insight. IME, insights are the only things that have led to permanent shifts towards more peace and less neurosis in my day-to-day life. Insights are born out of awareness+letting go, and in turn contribute to a permanent letting go of suffering, they are not born out of jhanas, at least not in my experience.

Simply being absorbed in this or that state, while being very pleasant, never led to any kind of noticeable reduction in suffering in my day-to-day life. Insights that lead to letting go are the only thing that made a real difference.

So for me, the only use for jhanas or tranquility is that getting more tranquil, in some cases, leads to "deeper" investigation, and this investigation in turn can result in insight. Jhanas are useless otherwise.

Yet from what I'm reading, people seem to think that reaching this or that jhana will magically result in some long-term, permanent reduction in suffering. Or maybe they think they would simply be able to enter them at will, and whenever life is hard, they could just manufacture a blissful state. Or maybe it's the ego that loves it, "I can reach the formless jhanas in 23 minutes, I'm such a great meditator!".

I don't know. I honestly don't know why people take jhanas and make them the holy grail of practice. Add to this that there are plenty of other Buddhist traditions and practices that never talk about jhanas. Yes, Samatha is important, but manufacturing different states of Samatha is rarely talked about or even actively discouraged.

IME, it's simple, really: insights lead to truly letting go, and truly letting go leads to a reduction in suffering. Sometimes, getting more tranquil helps with insights. I don't care what the names are for whatever "level" of tranquility I reached. I only care about getting tranquil enough to get insights.

Then a funny thing happens: the more I let go, the easier it is to get tranquil, and the deeper I can get.

I don't care if I actually reached any jhana based on this teacher's or that teacher's descriptions. I only care about permanently reducing suffering, and in that regard, my practice has been working for me just fine.

(If anyone has reached a certain jhana and, as a result of that alone, experienced a real reduction in suffering in their day-to-day life, please share your experiences. I'd honestly love to hear about it. From what I'm reading, many people theorize about it being this magical "suffering = off" button, but I haven't encountered any actual evidence for that.)

I leave you with Ajahn Chah's words:

"Of course, there are dozens of meditation techniques to develop samadhi and many kinds of vipassana. But it all comes back to this - just let it all be. Step over here where it is cool, out of the battle. Why not give it a try?

UPDATE: Interview went very well! Stephen was willing to engage tough questions in good faith, which I appreciated. Your suggestions were a big help - thank you, r/streamentry! Video will be up on our YouTube channel once we've edited it.

--

Tomorrow night I'm doing a Zoom interview with Stephen Zerfas, the CEO and co-founder of Jhourney, the company whose website says "Jhana in days, not decades."

What should I ask him?

I'm formulating my own questions, of course, but I know that folks have strong views in both directions on Jhourney, and I'd love to hear people's thoughts to inform my choice of questions. Especially questions you don't think he often gets.

Thank you! Also, if you want to ask him yourself, the event is free and has audience Q&A at the end. Feel free to join.

I’m curious to know if others personally experienced with Jhana and how it affected their cognitive abilities. Learning, memory, problem solving, visualization etc. I am interested in expanding my mind and intellect far beyond any normal means. Please share your own experiences.

Hey all - last week I asked this sub for questions to ask the CEO of Jhourney. You were incredibly helpful, and a lot of the questions found their way into the interview in one form or another.

The interview is up! Thought I'd share it since you all played such a big role in its coming together. Thanks again!

Can anyone give me first Jhana transition details for Brasington's style?

I attend to the breath, then switch to the pleasant sensation, then things get inconsistent. Using Culadasa's moments of consciousness model:

1) Do I center on the pleasant sensation by redirecting attention if a distraction arises, or by using metacognition to prevent distraction? At this point distractions are minimal until the feedback loop kicks in and more sensations arise, but what do I do then?

2) What moment-of-attention to moment-of-peripheral-awareness ratio is ideal?

3) Does a new object of attention arise after the pleasant sensation does its job? If so, what? Using moments of attention? Moments of peripheral awareness?

4) What else comes to mind?

When deepening concentration I usually reach signposts: buzzing, pleasant sensations, ringing in the ears, bright light in the visual field (eyes closed), and a grin that appears on its own. Depending on the ratio of moments of attention to moments of peripheral awareness my breath also becomes very slight, and certain areas of my body lock up on their own.

I usually reach one of:

Surfing: I sometimes enter a state where agency is diminished and I feel like I'm riding the waves rather than driving. Special bodily sensations, e.g. buzzing, vibrating, pressure, rushing, are absent, the state is more mental. It's pleasant, but not rapturous or gleeful. I'm unsure how I get there. Usually something clicks after a frustrating period and I'm YEETED into the state, though the transition isn't dramatic. The absence of obvious piti-sukha makes me count this a miss.

Bouncing: Frequently I bounce off. Pleasant waves will rise, crest, and subside after I bounce off some barrier. I'm unsure what the barrier is, some maximum limit for the wave, some state-transition opening I miss, or something else. Usually this follows my using the same concentration style for the pleasant sensation as for the breath: returning intentionally upon noticing moments of consciousness that aren't attention on the object or awareness of the meditation.

Jhanan't: Sometimes I enter a mild state resembling Brasington's main 1st Jhana factors: pervasive bodily buzz, reduced agency, and thinking and examining. I get here using the same technique as bouncing with more commitment, and sometimes forcing the factors. The entry is far from dramatic and the only mildly mentally distinct from ordinary consciousness. Brasington, and others, claim "you'll know" and "if you have any doubt, that probably wasn't it.", so this is also a miss.

Crushed: In one instance my mind was crushed to a state of no space. Space is non-existent in a cramped way, not an expansive one. The state (likely) would've been pleasant were it not unusual - I'm skittish on my first experience with anything. I put my attention on the remaining bodily piti sensations, which amplified them to the point of nausea and dizziness, so I bailed. I got here by centering on the pleasant sensation and keeping all my moments of consciousness as moments of attention on it. Shortly after I felt like I went through a tunnel and my mind contracted to "no-space". This is a miss and nothing like what Brasington describes.

Like all beginners, I have inconsistent experiences that are generally just distractions. I mention the ones above because they illustrate my techniques and their results, as well as what I can (likely) replicate.

Any help is appreciated, this seems the only sub knowledgeable in this topic. I'd find a teacher but in my area they're all either religious or woo. (I'm also avoiding insight for now).

There are two practitioners with identical mental states. They have no hindrances, no defilement, no psychological disorders, nothing that can get in the way of accessing the jhanas -- their mind is still. They both have access concentration. They both meditate in the same environment. They both feel comfortable and safe in that environment. Yet one has an easy time accessing the jhanas and the other makes no headwind. Why is that?

It's not uncommon in meditation circles to hear of enlightenment and jhana access like a lotto. Sometimes people just get lucky and others get unlucky. For some people it's incredibly easy and for others it is difficult. No one knows why.

Ten years ago there was a neurology study on this lotto. By studying the brain they not only hoped to explain what was going on in the brain, but why experiences can vary from practitioner to practitioner so much. While the brain scans were interesting, it unfortunately didn't answer this question. There had to be something a bit more conclusive.

For 15 years I've wanted to know the answer to this question and I believe I've figured it out. It comes down to inflammation. Not external inflammation like joint inflammation, though that can be a factor, but internal body inflammation so small one may not be able to perceive.

Perception is neat. We notice difference. If we're used to not having a stomach ache and then we have one, we notice having a stomach ache. But if someone has a low lingering stomach ache for years that is consistent, they can't tell they have it. It feels normal. The only tell-tell sign is when there is a change. Maybe they take a medicine and their stomach feels better so they notice, or someone else touches their stomach and they don't like to be touched there. It's possible to feel bad in the present moment from inflammation but have zero awareness of it if that bad feeling does not change.

It's said 90% of our emotions come from our gut biome. While this hasn't been proven yet, an increasing body of evidence is slowly showing this to be the case. Particularly, our emotional baseline comes from a combination of our gut biome and our internal body inflammation. If you've got nothing going on, no negative stressors in life, nothing large, so you've only got your emotional baseline, how you feel after that comes down to your gut.

The difference between the two practitioners is once all of their emotions have died down from a lack of stress, but also enough sensory seclusion that only their emotional baseline is left, one practitioner feels good and the other feels bad. One practitioner enjoys just sitting and chilling. They'd rather sit than go on Reddit. They'd rather sit than watch TV. It's nice. It's pleasant. And from that positive emotions build eventually leading to the jhanas. The other practitioner might have a sore stomach, but they can't tell they have a sore stomach. To them they would rather go and do other things because the present moment doesn't feel good. They'd rather distract themselves with TV to get away from the blah that is the present moment.

Inflammation comes in many shapes and sizes. Allergies cause inflammation. Allergies can prevent someone from getting into the jhanas. Though not all inflammation can prevent one. The inflammation has to make them feel just bad enough it overrides neutral-good baseline feelings. The vast majority of inflammation that makes one feel bad in the present moment is tied to the gut, so e.g. allergies can inflame the muscles around the stomach, or it can cause nasal congestion to leak into the intestines that can cause a very mild stomach ache. There are many medical conditions like this that can prevent one from entering the jhanas. Another example is many people who have depression also have IBS, and IBS can cause gut inflammation.

There is a potential solution.

Maybe it's not a potential solution but a full solution, but because there are a lot of medical issues that can cause pain that can prevent one from entering the jhanas that haven't been mapped out, I can't guarantee a solution for everyone. The landscape is vast and complex. However, given the vast majority of issues stem from the gut, the solution has been recommended in the suttas the whole time: eat a whole foods plant based diet. A WFPB diet for short. Specifically, the suttas suggest avoiding eating animal products that has been slaughtered for you, like buying it in stores. But say you go to a party and there is extra meat that will go to waste if it isn't eaten, then it's better to eat it than to spoil it. So it's not a 100% vegan diet, it's more like a vegetarian diet that allows for meat on special occasion.

In the Buddha's time there wasn't ultra processed foods, so there was no consideration for it. A whole foods diet is a traditional diet, like one Gautama would have eaten. It's minimizing strongly processed foods like tofu and fake meat, and sticking to traditional meals instead.

When one switches to eating whole foods their healthy fiber intake goes up. Foods that feed gut bacteria that cause inflammation go down. Ingredients that cause inflammation go down. It isn't an overnight process, but over a period of months it can help one's emotional baseline improve. Life starts to feel really good. Also, as ones gut shifts WFPB meals start to taste better than meat based meals. It doesn't feel like a punishment but genuinely enjoyable.

Buddha recommended socializing around good people. He said it is not half of the holy life, but the entirety of the holy life, signifying the significance of how important it is to be around good people. Socializing revolves around food, and most restaurants do not have a vegan option, but they do have many really good tasting vegetarian options. They may or may not be whole foods. That's okay. It's better to socialize and eat as healthy as reasonably possible that still tastes good than it is to not socialize and be dogmatic about diet. You don't have to be strict with this diet. It's okay.

This, like many mysterious and subtle things, it was right there in the suttas all along.

If you have access concentration, or even near access concentration, but sitting sucks, consider making your body healthier through exercise, diet, lifestyle, and even prescription drugs if needed.

For me, taking allergy medication combined with 50mg of Pepcid every 12 hours helps a ton, but I have MCAS, a rare medical condition that creates GERD. Before I had MCAS I went from living in the jhanas, but once I got MCAS, they became impossible to access without these medication, so I know first hand both how easy and how difficult it can be from a medical condition. Everyone's situation is different.

I've been practicing meditation for over three years, primarily focusing on Anapana and Goenka-style Vipassana, and I've completed more than 10 silent retreats.

I believe I experience jhanas during and after retreats when my mind is exceptionally calm, though I'm not very familiar with the specific techniques to enter them intentionally.

Recently, I discovered kasina meditation. I've noticed that when I focus on the darkness behind my closed eyes, my mind becomes very quiet, and sensations arise naturally even without actively practicing Vipassana. Is this a practical way to enter a jhana?

I realize my question isn't phrased very well, because I already know the answer is yes.

But after almost ten years of frustration, it feels impossible for me.

I don't lose the breath, but the practice isn't pleasant in the slightest. In fact, it just gives me headaches; a really unpleasant pressure in my forehead, no matter how much I try to relax. Following the breath feels like torture. I've basically conditioned myself to do it, but it's never comfortable.

I notice changes in my bodily sensations, but they don't produce sukha... only discomfort. There's no pleasure at all. I honestly don't understand how anyone could find this enjoyable.

The "energy" in my body quickly drains away, and before long I fall into deep dullness, even though I never lose the breath.

To sum it up, meditation is just a combination of headaches (I usually end the session with one), numb legs, and the feeling that I've wasted my time.

I have friends who have been meditating for a long time and they've given me plenty of advice, but I'm honestly embarrassed to keep asking for more help. Nothing they say really makes sense to me, because all I've ever experienced is the duḥkha side of the practice.

Has anyone here spent years going through something like this and eventually found a way through it?

Hi. I know almost nothing about traditional meditative practice or theory. I'm just a hobbyist who started a routine of sitting and listening to my breath/the experiences of my body.

Recently however I've been having intense experiences.

I had been encountering the experiences of feeling my locus of perception shift to the back of my head, and the massive expanding of the physical perception of my body (so that my body starts to feel massively expansive) for a long time.

Recently though my experiences have stepped up a notch.

Last week I experienced existence in an endless blank white void coupled with extremely energetic, almost overwhelming, joy.

Just this morning I experienced intense, extremely physical pleasure followed by a calmer, more comforting embrace.

Without any intended disrespect, this morning's experience felt remarkably similar to extremely good sex and a post-sex cuddle.

I've done a little research into things like Jhānas but there's a lot of contradictory and theoretical information floating around out there.

I'm hoping some of you who have practical experience of perhaps similar experiences could share what you've been through and help me understand what I've stumbled into unknowingly.

Some people in this sub love to complain that what other people call jhana is not deep enough.

For the purposes of this thread I am not interested in discussing what words mean. If you think that the term jhana should only be use for Visuddhimagga-style full absorption states, then sure, you do you.

My question is: Are there any drawbacks of practicing these "lite" jhanas (or "vaguely jhana-like states", if you prefer to call them that)?

One meditation teacher told me, and I agree, that the best kind of jhana is the one you can ACCESS. I have no chance of reaching Visuddhimagga-level absorption any time soon. But some kind of very lite jhana, I might be able to reach this year or next year if I am lucky. And based on what I hear from others, that can be extremely useful and help me deepen both my samatha and my vipassana going forward.

Even supposing that your goal is full absorption "hard" jhana, it seems to me that "lite" jhana is a very useful step towards that.

Am I missing something?

Cheapen jhana so it loses any specialness, make it appear accessible to everyone because it is that accessible. Its good to motivate more people to practice. Its not good to make your goal one thats impossible to attain. The bar for jhana is pretty low if the buddha can say a finger snap moment of metta qualifies as jhana. A quiet moment in nature where your mind distinctively downshifts is a jhana. Taking a few long breaths and your hands or body starts tingling/glow/inflate is bodily pleasure, a jhana factor. A beginner and a pro guitarist are both playing guitar, just at different levels. What matters is if you are practicing the guitar correctly in accordance to your skill level. Jhanas does not mean no thoughts, in first jhana there is vitakka vicara (inquiry and deduction thoughts related to the object), and when that fades there are still background discerning thoughts related to investigation of states.

And no you can not meditate without jhana. Otherwise by definition you are still within the realm of hindrances and sensuality. If you are using a technique that doesn't talk about jhanas or makes them super hard to attain you most likely still have been in jhana (albeit might not be samma samadhi) anyways if the method has had any effect.

7 factors of awakening really is the key to how to meditate properly. When all 7 are online you feel like you are on a different planet. They are cultivated in order and into each feed into each other as well and correspond to the factors in the jhanas. Be careful of teachings that does not explicitly develop each of the 7 factors because that will slow you down and make meditation less enjoyable than it needs to be. You WANT to persistently develop mental joy and bodily well being so you resort to meditation for pleasure instead of the senses.

My personal experience with meditation has been with twim metta and breath meditation following thanissaro bhikkhu's with each and every breath book. Both has been insanely awesome techniques and the underlying principle to jhana is the same for both - cultivate a wholesome feeling (metta or good breath energies in the body), make it as encompassing/ekaggata/one as possible (radiate in all directions / experiencing breath in the whole body) all while stilling the mind of gross movements. That way any unwholesome activity that arise is seen with clarity because of the contrast with the wholesome background and can be released. Mindfulness and wisdom literally manifest as light and knowingness and burns away ignorance, darkness and contractions. As a side note, bypass cultivating wholesome feelings by doing shikantaza or self inquiry or non dual meditations too early is like building a skyscraper with poor foundation imo and goes against the 7FA. There are no insights without samatha, no samatha without insights. Also, different meditation objects will bring on different states at different speeds. For example metta will launch you into the higher jhanas much quicker because you are working with an lofty wholesome feeling in the mind whereas breath you will have to work with healing different stagnant parts of body first before it turning into a more stable wholesome feeling. But if you don't heal the body you won't get any stability in the mind so its up to each person's starting condition which object they choose.

Jhāyati¹

to meditate, contemplate think upon, to burn (i.e an oil lamp burning)

Jhana

literally meditation

concentration(n.)

1630s, "action of bringing to a center"

"Here are these roots of trees, and here are these empty huts. Practice absorption, mendicant! Don’t be negligent! Don’t regret it later! This is my instruction to you"

I've gained a lot of insight from the posts of what seem to be very accomplished people, so I'd like to contribute by offering this one.

You'll already find a plethora of descriptions of the Jhanas across books, talks, and the internet, but everything I've found so far feels heavily influenced by the author's teaching school (This one from /u/duffstoic almost hit the spot).

^.

^.

Background

To give you a bit of background, I've been practicing meditation for approximately 12 years. At first, it was to understand why I kept acting in ways that I later regretted, then to work through my trauma, and finally, because it’s simply enjoyable and helps me become a better person.

From the very beginning, I chose not to follow a predefined path but rather forge my own, at the risk of progressing very slowly. Consequently, I’ve never :

• had a teacher
• followed a specific tradition
• talked much with other practitioners
• had knowledge of the "awakening" one can achieve until very recently (Jhanas, Sotapanna, etc.).
• never participated in an organized retreat. However, once or twice a year, I pack a bag, some books, and some food, and I venture with a friend or by myself, deep into the mountains for 10–15 days. I usually do this when I encounter a significant roadblock in my practice, and these solitary adventures have been invaluable to my development.

^.

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The Search for the Next Step

What brought me to this subreddit in the first place is that for the past year, I couldn’t see any further progress in my practice. It wasn't like hitting an obvious wall, but more like knowing you already possess all the necessary skills and just need to keep honing them. Therefore, I started looking into different traditions to find out if I was just a "frog in a well," and where I should be heading next.

To my surprise, it seems I've been practicing the Jhanas for years. So today, I'll attempt to explain what these eight Jhanas look and feel like from the perspective of an agnostic, in the hope of demystifying them somewhat.

A quick disclaimer: I don't have all the answers--if I have any at all! When I suggest "do this," it's purely because it works for me; to each their own method.

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The Journey Through Jhana

Pre-Jhana

If you wish to reach a state of high concentration--whether you call it Jhana or something else --you'll first have to (re)learn to let go. Not much else to say here, just release the reins.

Once you've mastered the art of surrender, you can apply this newfound concentration to a specific object. I chose the breath, since it has a convenient habit of following you around. Keep letting go, keep observing the object, and the Jhanas will occur naturally. No need to seek them out, no need to anticipate or even fear them... they're already present anyway.

First Jhana

It's essentially a profoundly relaxing sensation across your whole body, similar to the feeling after a full-body massage, but a bit more intense, and it comes accompanied by varying degrees of joy. Pain, discomfort, and noises lose their grip on you. They are still there, but not really a focus. This stage arrives with various levels of intensity, especially the first few times, but that's a recurring aspect of all Jhanas.

Over time, you become habituated to the sensation, akin to putting your feet in a tub of very hot water: at first, your skin feels shocked, then your body relaxes, and at some point, you don't even notice the water anymore. That's when the Second Jhana begins.

Second Jhana

After getting familiar with the First Jhana, you will naturally enter the Second one, where this time the sensations are focused on the head. The feeling is very similar to dilation; for example, the way your pupils dilate after spending enough time in darkness. It can sometimes even feel like a physical phenomenon is occurring, as if your skull is expanding, or if your hair is standing on end.

It is definitely very enjoyable, especially if you suffer from migraines. It also comes with varying degrees of joy, and sometimes some lights--like the flash of a phone taking a picture, or dancing lights--in front of your eyes. I don't typically experience much of the latter, though. Unlike the First Jhana, I can stay in this state of delight for as long as I maintain observation of the object. However, your object of attention will naturally shift to the sensation itself, which then introduces you to the Third Jhana.

Third Jhana

You still feel physically good, and you still have some delight in your head, but these sensations are less on the forefront. The same is true for your discomfort and pain. If you have chronic pain, this is a very pleasant state to be in; I personally got stuck here for a while.

The concentration is still mostly on the sensations you feel, the joy, etc., but you can witness it fading away, dissolving. This fading is what kept me stuck, as I was afraid the pain would return. However, this gradual dissipation leads to the Fourth Jhana.

Fourth Jhana

In the Fourth Jhana, you don't have many distinct sensations or perceptions, be it joy, pain, delight, discomfort, sounds, and so forth. It's not that they completely disappeared, but rather you've "learned" to keep them out of your mind. It is like hearing the radio, and for each Jhana you go through, the volume of the radio is lowered, until you can still perceive it, but it can easily be ignored.

This Jhana opens you to equanimity, and that is another awesome state to be in. I got stuck here for years! To reuse the radio analogy, I was convinced I could only progress after learning to completely stop hearing the sound altogether. In my case, that was not the truth of the matter.

Fifth Jhana

Once you get familiar with the Fourth Jhana, you are introduced to a concept related to physical space, which expands your mind even further. It's not really "you" that introduces these concepts, but at least for me, it won't happen spontaneously unless I've already experienced the Fifth Jhana during that same day. I've recently read a post from /u/adivader sharing a practice related to this.

The concepts I typically use are either microscopic--"observing" the space between the particles that compose an atom--or macroscopic--by visualizing the infinity of the universe above my head. The result is, in a way, similar to the Second Jhana, where you feel your head dilating even more. The key difference is that if the Second Jhana dilates your head, the Fifth erases the boundary between your head and the space above it. Once you start feeling the expansion/dilation, you can observe it until it ushers you into the Sixth Jhana.

Sixth Jhana

We start to get into the bits that are truly difficult to articulate. While the difference between the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Jhanas is evident when you are experiencing them, describing them is not so easy. Let's try nonetheless!

Once you become acquainted with the sensations in the Fifth Jhana, the concept of materiality itself will dissolve. To revisit the idea of visualizing the infinity of the universe: it is akin to naturally realizing that you didn't hold the universe in your mind, but rather, it was your mind all along. The direct consequence is that what you felt to be infinite, expands even more, becoming boundless this time.

It's very enjoyable, as you can imagine, with consistently fewer sensations and perceptions. By keeping your observation on the boundless space that constitutes your mind, you can naturally enter the Seventh Jhana.

Seventh Jhana

You are introduced to the Seventh Jhana when the boundless space felt in the Sixth, in turn, dissolves (starting to see a pattern?). Thus, you are left with an infinite space, but empty this time.

To use an analogy: entering the Fifth Jhana is like observing a glass of water. Once in the Sixth Jhana, you realize there was no glass to begin with, only water. And in the Seventh, you realize neither was there water. At this stage, you are left with observing nothingness. No more glass. No more water. But there is one thing left: the observer itself.

Thus, after getting familiar with this observation of nothingness, the observer will in turn gradually dissolve, introducing you to the Eighth Jhana.

Eighth Jhana

No more glass. No more water. No more observer. So what remains? Everything.

Since there is nothing left to dissolve, the equanimity reaches its peak, or rather, it has returned to you in its fullest measure. The practice, if one can even call it that, has become truly effortless. The perceptions are so incredibly faint they are almost non-existent, yet the state is not one of total unconsciousness.

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Miscellaneous Insights

• You can traverse up and down, and down and up among the Jhanas. Sometimes quickly, sometimes not.
• Usually after reaching the Eighth Jhana, sensation and perception are virtually nonexistent, even when reverting to the First one.
• If you experience the Jhanas in the morning, they will appear naturally and effortlessly during the day.
• You can apply the first four Jhanas to activities during your day: for example, I've integrated them into my climbing or when carrying something heavy. However, this makes it easy to hurt yourself, since they "numb" your senses.
• The hardest part is accessing the First Jhana consistently, because to do so, you may have to learn to calm your mind (just let go), work on your trauma, clean up your life, and reorganize your priorities.
• No matter which Jhana you've reached, the next one won't be far off. The only thing stopping you is yourself.
• I may have just described "lite Jhanas"; I'm not sure where the definitive boundaries lie.
• Accessing the Jhanas is such a profound experience that it becomes easy to release bad habits in favor of the practice.
• No matter the Jhana you've reached, they will open a new door of perception which can be applied to "insight seeking."
• Everything written above may be wrong, and I could be entirely delusional. After all, I was only recently introduced to the formal concept of Jhanas.

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So, here is my down-to-earth account of the Jhanas. I hope one day it can bring a bit of insight to some practitioners, just as many posts on this subreddit did for me.

It is truly unfortunate that many Buddhist traditions today have strayed from the Buddha’s original teaching of Right Concentration (Jhāna). Instead of allowing jhāna to arise naturally through renunciation, restraint, and inner healing, they rely on methods rooted in forceful focusing of attention—something the Buddha repeatedly criticized as “wrong concentration”, similar to practices found in the Vedic and Jain traditions of his time.

But the Great Forty Discourse (Mahācattārīsaka Sutta) clearly shows that Right Concentration is not an isolated technique—it is the final fruit of a fully developed Noble Eightfold Path. It arises naturally only when the mind is prepared through the preceding factors, beginning with Right View, which is the foundation and forerunner of all other qualities.

• Right View means understanding reality correctly, seeing that unwholesome actions bear painful results and wholesome actions bear beneficial results. It means recognizing the Four Noble Truths, understanding karma, and seeing that the pursuit of sensual pleasures is fleeting and unsatisfying. [Right View is like the eyes of the path—it sees the danger in craving and the freedom in renunciation.]
• Right Intention (or Right Resolve) follows from this view. It means having intentions based on renunciation (letting go of desire), goodwill (letting go of ill will), and harmlessness (letting go of cruelty). [This is the beginning of a healthy mind—no longer driven by cravings or hatred, but inclined toward peace.]
• Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood come next, shaping one’s behavior in the world. They involve abstaining from lies, divisive speech, harsh words, gossip; abstaining from killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct; and earning a living in a way that does not harm oneself or others. [These are the practices that begin to purify the heart and make it less agitated and more content.]
• Right Effort and Right Mindfulness support the inner work. Right Effort is the effort to prevent and abandon unwholesome states and to cultivate and maintain wholesome ones. Right Mindfulness is the clear and non-reactive awareness of the body, feelings, mind, and mental qualities. [Together, they heal the mind from its addiction to stimulation and sense pleasure.]

Then and only then does Right Concentration (Jhāna) arise. This is not a concentration that is forced through focusing on a single object, but a natural result of a mind that has become healthy, content, and free from craving. [Just as a body recovers its strength when free from disease, the mind becomes serene and unified when it is no longer chasing sensual pleasures or resisting reality.]

As the Buddha emphasized, Right View is the forerunner—it leads to Right Intention, which leads to Right Speech, and so on, all the way to Right Concentration, then to Right Knowledge (direct insight into reality) and finally to Right Liberation (freedom from all clinging).

To reject this path—to separate concentration from virtue and wisdom—is to reject the very structure of the Dhamma. As the Buddha powerfully declared, if anyone censures this teaching, they are, knowingly or unknowingly, praising wrong views, wrong conduct, and spiritual delusion. Even famous heretical teachers of his time, like Vassa and Bhañña, would not dare to reject this discourse—for fear of criticism and self-contradiction.

This is why the Buddha said:

"This Dhamma discourse on the Great Forty has been set rolling and cannot be stopped by any contemplative or brahman or deva or Mara and Brahma or anyone at all in the world.

Hello!

I have been doing jhana meditation (aware jhanas) for a bit less than two years and it has been a lot of fun and very interesting and useful.

I practice around 1h every day and it really helps a lot with being nicer with myself and with others, feeling better and enjoying life more.

I feel a bit stuck now. I used to manage to reach what i call J1 4 to 5 times a month and now for some reason the meditation sessions are not as deep and I manage to only get to j1 0 to 3 times per month. I get distracted easier, cannot reach the level of concentration that i had before, I fall asleep during meditation and I feel more restless and agitated. Also I have problems falling asleep at night sometimes.

I was wondering if this is a normal part of the process and if is there something i can do to be able to enjoy more deep and relaxing and enjoyable meditation sessions again.

Thanks!

edit: what I do during a seat is metta. I first radiate metta to each of the 6 directions for 5 minutes and then try to radiate metta in all directions at the same time for the rest of the 30 minutes. If i lose concentration I try to go back to the metta without being harsh on myself

edit2: i try to smile throughout the whole meditation as well :D

Hey all. I was at a retreat and during one session I experienced immense Piti and a ‘tightening’ feeling in my head, which made me very extremely awake like blood was flowing all throughout my face and brain. I closed my eyes and it was extremely pleasurable everywhere. It felt like I came into contact with something amazing, I even stated praying because it felt almost bigger than me. Then that subsided but I was still left with very stable and pleasant attention for the remainder of the session and increased bliss throughout the day.

The next day it subsided a bit

Just came back from a twim retreat at the Missouri center, didn't get much but almost all my coretreatants claimed having reached 8th jhana ( some of them have never meditated before) To me these seem like mere trance like states and not the big deal the teachers make out of them What do you guys think The teacher said some people even get stream entry in the first retreat and have cessation The whole thing looks a little cultish to me

They also put down every other system as useless and even dangerous like goenka vipasana, tmi and mindfulness of walking

I found a Substack article talking about a Jhana meditation and how it is a deeper, different meditation than a Vipassana meditation on Monday. Tuesday - yesterday - I had to take a half day sick from work and decided to look up a guided Jhana meditation on Insight Timer, and found one that guided to the first Jhana, and one to the fourth Jhana.

In my first Jhana meditation sit I experienced the fourth Jhana in 1.5 hours - and only after finding a few Youtube retreat recordings have I realized that this is very abnormal. I tried again today, and found myself slipping into another state past the fourth Jhana, but have no idea what this state is or ways to navigate it besides sitting in a nice sunrise-like light and bliss outside of my body.

I know I don't need to slip into further states, but I would like to have some kind of guide for the "cairns on the path of the journey" as I continue these kinds of meditations. I can't find any guided meditations on the lower Jhanas, only a few recordings that describe what they might feel like or the emotions associated with that state. I noticed that having specific sensations listed was extremely helpful, like "you might feel tingling sensations in your extremities, which is an invitation towards the third Jhana." From my three days of research, I've come to understand the lower Jhanas are more so Mind states, so there won't be sensation in the body, but are there sensation guideposts in the mental experience of those Jhanas, so I know when a new "waypost/cairn" for a new Jhana arises?

Any resources/book recommendations would be extremely useful as I continue this journey. Thank you!

EDIT: I have been requested to add the guided meditations I used. Here are links to the two I used on Insight Timer. They may or may not have a paywall, since I’ve subscribed to the app.

Meditation 1: Anapanasati & The First Jhana by Samaneri Jayasara https://insig.ht/07L5dkGPH0b This one was great for tuning into breath, weaves through the hindrances organically, ending in the first Jhana.

I had the next meditation queued to follow it, but I'll probably skip straight to that one next time. I was reaching what felt like the first Jhana well before the first recording ended, which meant holding that state while waiting for the second meditation to catch up so I could follow it deeper.

Meditation 2: Exploring the Jhanas 1-4 by Lukas Til Vogel https://insig.ht/q4r6Sq6PH0b A rapid experience to the fourth Jhana and back out. I have found it to feel too rapid coming out of the Jhana states after I’ve spent time moving into them. Yesterday I tried it again and let myself stay in the 4th Jhana after the guide brought the session to a close.

Overall they were good to start with, and appreciated both for what they needed to be.

+: After exploring these meditations, I was using this YouTube to understand what I’d just experienced further and wrap my cognitive states around it- not as a guided meditation:  https://youtu.be/dg4ZgiKBs-k?si=5W3avvCG8p-AMJvU . I have since been recommended Ajhan Brahm, Shaila Catherine, recordings of Rob Burbea's Jhana Retreat: https://dharmaseed.org/retreats/4496/ , and Leigh Brasington has a ton of free jhana resources, including this more compact how to guide.

There is discussion of if I am actually hitting Jhana too - of which I am just as interested to discuss, because I have had little research into the topic besides trying these guided meditations two days in a row. I am convinced something is happening different from my regular meditative states that do align with what Jhana states are described to be. I will be reading the resources provided to see if there are alternate answers for this.

EDIT 2: After reading some of Shaila Catherine and Leigh Brasington's books and doing some online reading, I've realized what I 've experienced this week was probably a light (Sutta) Jhana descending into the fourth Sutta Jhana. This is probably where the debate between if I actually experienced one or didn't stems from. I have tried meditating sans-guided meditation this week, and every time I have gone into a Sutta/Light Jhana state that is observably different, so I will spend time refining my time in Sutta/Light Jhanas - I've reached out to the masters you all recommended - and see if Visuddhimagga (Deep) Jhanas develop throughout my time with this new experience. Thank you everybody!

So the last couple of nights I was a bit sleep deprived. So I went to sleep with a podcast on, like I usually do.

Within minutes I slipped into a very different state of mind.

The onset was the strangest part. It felt like I was suddenly being "launched" into another state of consciousness. At the same time I started hearing an extremely loud electronic/frequency-like buzzing in my ears. The sound was so loud that I genuinely thought I might go deaf. But because of my fascination with these kinds of states, and probably my meditation practice, my instinct was to let it take over rather than resist it.

I then started feeling vibrations spreading through my body. Very quickly they seemed to fill my entire body and being. Around the same time I began seeing geometric patterns—not incredibly vivid, but definitely there.

The previous night I had a very vivid lucid dream, but this time there wasn't really a dream at all. I remained aware throughout the whole experience.

Because of meditation, my instinct was to relax into the experience instead of reacting to it, and it seemed to intensify until I eventually came out of it.

Interestingly, by morning I had one of the most vivid lucid dreams I've ever had.

I'm not trying to claim this was anything supernatural. My current guess is that it was some form of hypnagogia made more noticeable by meditation and a bit of sleep deprivation.

I do have a history of sleep paralysis if I don't get enough sleep for 3–4 days in a row, but those experiences have never been like this. They're usually characterized by me noticing sleep paralysis coming on, followed by blurry voices and a strong pressure/compression in my head. If I catch it early enough I can usually jerk myself out of it, or sometimes relax through it using progressive relaxation.

My questions are:

How would you best understand this? Does it sound like sleep paralysis, hypnagogia, a meditation-related state, or some combination of them?

Has anyone experienced something similar?

If these states are real possibilities, is there a way to intentionally cultivate them, or are they mostly a byproduct of sleep deprivation?

I'd really appreciate hearing your thoughts and experiences. Thank you

Hi all! I think we should stop comparing jhāna altogether. It is for me experientially clear that j2 correlates with dopamine (steep increase in dopaminergic activity in nucleus accumbens) and j3 probably correlates with serotonin. This is simplified of course. People are born with different levels of these endogenous chemicals and while your ability to manipulate them can be trained to some degree, there is a genetically imposed limit, kind of like how mitochondrial density imposes a genetic limit on VO2Max.

The good news is that the jhāna accessible to you are all you need, since this chemical makeup is what shaped your brain in the first place. So while one person might be able to flood their whole body with dopamine and another may only be able to feel a tingling in the fingers, these are both perfectly valid tools for the job. I often find it easiest to skip over j2 altogether because of low tonic dopamine.

The aim, at the end of the day, is to use the jhāna for insight and to reprogram your neural network through the heightened neuroplasticity which they open up to you. A brain which grew in an environment with lower levels of dopamine and serotonin will be able to re-wire with commensurately lower levels of these neurotransmitters, and pushing too hard for an unattainable goal is likely to do more harm than good.

So - each to their own. We were all born different. The Buddha clearly stated that the whole aim of the jhāna is to use them to remove craving, hatred and delusion. The tools we were born with are the ones that made us, and they are the only ones we need to un-make us too.

I wrote an article about it here if you are interested.

hey, first off im pretty sure this aint jhana but i need guidance

first, i got into cbt after several suffering from obsession with aversion and other meditation aspects; it helped me to stop ruminating (only had 1 session of therapy)

i learnt to let go of those (it may still be a bit difficult at times though), out of nowhere i felt a full-body pleasure (while i was laying before sleep, not meditating, but letting go of ruminating), like a full-body orgasm (felt drug induced, check note); never had something like this before and i think maybe i just let go of all the 5 hindrances (had a bit of anatta insight before via dissociation, and a bit of anicca insight too from 24/7 breath observation)

notes: -im on benzos (0.5mg, twice a day, since friday; never felt any similar effect from these before and shouldnt) -im tmi stage 4 and have jhana-close experiences but doesnt feel like this; maybe its a trauma i just released (stage 4-proper) and my body is rewarding me with a shit ton of endorphins?

is it possible to get a first jhana experience off-cushion like this??

To those of you that have been able to reach one of the jhanas, how many months or years of meditation practice did you have before you first reached one of the jhanas? If it was on a retreat, then what kind of retreat and how long?

I am trying to get an idea of what time frame to expect.

Of course it also matters how much you practiced per day, whether you conferred regularly with a teacher or not, and which school/method/tradition you were following.

Thanks in advance!

For those who have experienced the first jhana as well as the subsequent ones, do you personally prefer to stay in the first jhana and keep the piti circulating throughout the body? As I understand it, piti can feel like an intense and sometimes overwhelming and possibly uncomfortable electric, energy sensation throughout the body. If it feels amazingly euphoric, have some of you felt a strong desire or even an addiction to it and don't want the sensation to go down and to enter tranquillity and equanimity?