do these three things to access jhana

I want to add lists of options for each of the main three actions we continually do in jhana practice, and to use this page as a growing directory of guided meditations and resources I produce to demonstrate the listed options. These are techniques that’ve helped me and students I’ve worked with. There’s not much of an explanation for each technique in this post. I may produce more in-depth explanations, but am currently drawn to doing guided meditations first to demonstrate the techniques.

Also, please read my safety note at the bottom of this page before starting this practice.

In this type of meditation, we increase the duration of nice feelings until they take on a momentum of their own and turn into an altered state called jhana.

To increase the duration of nice feelings and in order for those feelings to phase shift into jhana, we do three things: find nice feelings, respond to nice feelings, and love anything else that shows up. These three actions don’t need to happen in order, they don’t need to happen in equal amounts, they can happen simultaneously, and they can overlap in their definitions.

What are nice feelings?

Anything that feels nice from neutral valence peace to positive valence euphoric bliss. Here’s a list of some nice feelings:

1. peace

2. calm

3. neutral feeling / relaxation (not something bleak or dissociative)

4. contentment

5. cozy

6. safe

7. compassion

8. love

9. gratitude

10. happiness / joy

11. amusement

12. excitement / thrill

13. glee

14. euphoric bliss

On “not nice” feelings

Feelings like anger or sadness can seem unpleasant and as if they’re source of our suffering. People often label those feelings as bad or not nice. It’s okay and normal if you find yourself automatically interpreting feelings this way. But a much different experience is possible, one where feelings like anger and sadness are cathartic and flow unobstructed, where it becomes clear no emotion is bad nor the source of our suffering. The way to get there is by experimenting a lot. And the jhana experiment can be one of the most fun and beautiful.

How do we find nice feelings?

Here’s some options:

1. do something to cause a nice feeling

   1. visualizing

   2. memories

   3. gratitude

   4. mantras

   5. practice metta / loving-kindness / generous intent / friendly intent

   6. smiling

2. notice existing nice feelings during or outside of “formal” meditation

3. love something that doesn’t seem like a nice feeling

4. increase emotional awareness if you can’t find any emotion in general

5. react to physical pleasure to cause a positive emotional reaction.

How do we respond to nice feelings?

Here are some options:

1. appreciating -- responding with appreciation/gratitude to the feeling that’s showing up

2. sending/sharing (metta) -- imagining sharing the feeling with others

3. savoring -- savoring the enjoyment and pleasure of the nice feeling

4. receiving -- imagining that we’re receiving the nice feeling from something or someone

5. relaxing -- relaxing into the feeling. like the other ways of responding to nice feelings, there are variations of relaxing. some include surrendering, letting go, unclenching, watching, and non-doing.

How do we love things other than nice feelings?

First, here are some things other than nice feelings:

1. expectations and limiting beliefs

2. thoughts

3. emotions that don’t initially feel nice

4. tension (body/mind)

5. sounds

How to love everything else?

I’m using “love” mainly as a pointer to anything that isn’t non-loving like pushing away or repressing, because loving everything else doesn’t need to be some huge, gushy move. For example, it can look like gently acknowledging the thing that’s showing up before returning to the object of meditation: the nice feeling.

Here are some ways to respond to things other than nice feelings in a loving way:

1. relaxing (associated mental/body tension), unclenching, surrendering in response to it

2. welcoming / embracing it

3. savoring it

4. gratitude for the thing and/or for being aware that you aren’t looking at the nice feeling anymore

5. forgiving it

6. accepting it

7. goofy responses to (booping, licking, etc) it

8. labeling / noting it

9. non-doing, just watching it

10. imagining hugging it

11. supporting the emotion by holding it with imaginary hands

12. petting the emotion in a comforting way

13. parts work (Core Transformation, IFS, etc) about it

14. inquiry (fetters style, wholeness work, Kiloby inquiry, etc) about it

How to keep practice simple?

Choose one way of finding nice feelings, one way of responding to nice feelings, and one way of loving everything else to experiment and play with per sit. You don’t need to know how to do all the types of things listed in the “how to love everything else” section.

Unanswered questions

What’s glowing in front of me are some key unanswered questions about how each of these three main moves fit together, interact, and change over the course of a meditation session. There’s probably others I’ll remember as soon as I send this. Anyway, my intention is to make some guided meditations that answer those questions and illustrate further concepts to help someone learn the jhanas.

If you want help learning the jhanas in the form of meditation coaching or live, guided, interactive meditations, I’m starting 1:1 calls again after taking a break. Here’s my booking link.

SAFETY: Making friends with emotions and steeping in ease and enjoyment during jhana practice seems to be a very safe type of meditation. To meditate safely, if you encounter challenging emotions, DON’T do things that look like pushing through the challenge or gritting out the experience to get to the other side. If a meditation session felt like it sucked, don’t keep meditating in the same way. Seek help to make it not suck. I have a lot of experience helping people into jhana and making meditation fun, but I am NOT a licensed mental health professional. Consult one if you have a history of mental illness before messing with meditation. I want you to be safe and happy and blast off into jhana, and am stoked to support you in that endeavor, but know that if you decide to go spelunking in your psyche, that’s on you.