Jhourney

NEW retreats announced for 2026! 🧘 - Online Work-Compatible: Mar 5-15 (2 weekends) - Apr 2-9 at Zephyr Point (Lake Tahoe) - Jul 11-18 at Blue Spirit (Costa Rica) - Aug 28-Sep 4 at Kripalu (MA near NYC & Boston) - Nov 8-15 at Zephyr Point (Lake Tahoe) More online retreats TBA

Free later today? Join our co-founder @stephen_zerfas online for a free silent meditation followed by a conversation about the jhanas and Q+A. He'll be joining Sit-Heads Meditation Club today from 7-9pm ET (4-6pm) PT. Free and you can register here: eventbrite.com/e/qa-with-jhan…

The hardest instruction on retreat is also the simplest: stop trying so hard.

The last morning is mostly about re-entry: how to carry a quieter mind back into email, traffic, and group chats without getting overwhelmed

Relax your jaw. Then your shoulders. Then whatever you just re-tensed while reading this.

Our most skeptical applicants tend to become our most vocal alumni. 'I'll believe it when I feel it' turns out to be a pretty good filter.

Many alumni come back for a second or third retreat. One said: "I just want to see how much further this goes."

A man describing the persistent tax many of us pay while seeking our full potential: "We are a little bit tortured by our minds. Most people, including me, are struggling unnecessarily with mental structures and thoughts we don't even want to have."

A founder on what brought him to Jhourney: "I was grinding my face off in startups, absolutely miserable and burned out."

We prefer the word collectedness to concentration. The important distinction is that you get to collectedness through relaxation, not force. Work smart not hard.

A longtime student on his old practice: "After fifteen minutes I’m bored, and the last five minutes of each sit is real torture." Meditation doesn’t have to be something you survive!

An alum, on the experience of the jhanas: "It felt like the embracing of my full self, in a way I've struggled to do my whole life. I always tell people it was like 6 months of therapy in 30 minutes."

Walking meditation isn't filler between sits! The instruction is to hold an openhearted feeling with every step. One framing we love: every footfall is the earth loving you back.

One of our alums is an exited founder who noticed the limits of his biggest strength: "I was always very proud that I was very even-keeled. I only saw the benefit of that, without realizing that it meant I wasn’t fully experiencing joy"

Spots open for the next one: tinyurl.com/4e6ppj3s

On retreat we hand you a booklet, an MP3 player, a non-phone alarm clock, then take your phone for the week. Many describe the silence that follows as the first time their head's been quiet in years.

The first 24 hours on retreat are the most structured to ensure we give you all the tools to succeed as quickly as possible. After that, the week deliberately opens up. We call the arc success by learning → success by play.

From a February retreatant: "Intense, ecstatic, overwhelming joy followed by a state of smooth, symmetrical, cool bliss one morning. The afterglow lasted the rest of the day. Easily top 1% days of my life."

The venn diagram of people who have everything but don’t actually feel any of it is Jhourney’s niche

A father of young kids on what brought him to Jhourney: "I'd had one of the peak experiences of my life. Obviously I wanted to go back to it, but I don't really want to take magic mushrooms all the time." The jhanas don't require a babysitter.

Images are better than words, showing better than telling, too much instruction worse than none, and “trying” often produces negative results. – Timothy Gallwey On retreat, we have experienced meditators narrate their internal process out loud as they approach jhana. It's like mirroring a tennis pro hitting the ball instead of reading an instruction manual.