Jhourney
1.1K posts
@jhanatech
We teach meditative states most people never knew were possible. In a week.
To be clear – was riffing off Jonny's tweet about the mindfulness industry and the big apps (Headspace, Calm), not sati as a quality of mind, which is core to jhana practice. Those apps optimize for retention and stress reduction, and not depth. Most people doing jhana practice got there through a teacher or retreat and not because Calm graduated them there. They've created a floor, not a pipeline. The app format still has real room for innovation (on-ramping to deeper practice + creating long-term baseline change) and that's the space we're excited to be working in.
fwiw: I don't think 'mindfulness' will be the default meditation entry point in five years' time. Jhanas are absurdly more compelling + beneficial for almost everyone (training emotional fluidity, embodiment + unclenching) But I also doubt jhana will go mainstream unless it goes through something of a re-brand. (friends outside of the inner-work echo chamber squint when I say the word and I think 'jh' is unfortunately a barrier) My guess is it will follow a similar trajectory to yoga nidra which @hubermanlab rebranded as NSDR, and it then exploded in popularity Likely there will be some meaningful research on jhanas states → they'll create a scientific technical-sounding acronym like 'BASE' (Bliss Attractor State Emergence), and @jhanatech by then will hopefully have cracked an accessible entry point for teaching jhana-access.
To be clear – was riffing off Jonny's tweet about the mindfulness industry and the big apps (Headspace, Calm), not sati as a quality of mind, which is core to jhana practice. Those apps optimize for retention and stress reduction, and not depth. Most people doing jhana practice got there through a teacher or retreat and not because Calm graduated them there. They've created a floor, not a pipeline. The app format still has real room for innovation (on-ramping to deeper practice + creating long-term baseline change) and that's the space we're excited to be working in.
just made some updates to the Rob Burbea jhana retreat app, and I'll be going through myself for the next 20 days (or until our baby arrives!) → jhanaretreat.com
I wrote a short reflection on the @jhanatech retreat, what actually stayed with me about 1.5 years later. ruanputka.com/posts/jhourney…
They (a) show you in an undeniable and unforgettable way that everything you do, from career choices to conduct in relationships, is in search of and response to feelings, (b) that everything you seek — the full spectrum of experience from bliss to peace — can be found within you, (c) counter the cultural narrative, pleasure and addiction are two very different things, (d) mental tension, a subtle form of internal violence faster than thought, is at the root of all your problems, (e) the solution is to learn to recursively surrender this tension at lower and lower levels of your mental habits (f) and once you do, a new mentality of abundance and clarity of your own nervous system affords new flexibility and sustainability in living out your deepest values and meaning-making, from prosocial behavior to delayed gratification All this is doable because the jhanas are a *feeling* meditation that, like yoga nidra and hypnosis, appear to work with your subconscious directly. It’s like checking out a feature branch, solving a bug, and shipping the code back to production: when wielded correctly, new mental habits last permanently off the cushion. And because you can’t crave a jhana and get into one, it’s like a zero trust cryptographic proof: you have to learn to surrender at each step of the way rather than develop clinging. Each new jhana requires subtler proof. Together, this letting-go-requirement and personality change make for a great launch pad to other practices, from Western psychotherapy to other forms of spiritual development (eg nondual). There’s a reason people like @shamilch and @nickcammarata have said it’s up there with AI and longevity as one of the most important, untapped secrets on the planet right now. I know of few things with such an importance, tractability, and neglect profile.
Last week, I joined the @jhanatech retreat and had one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. I genuinely didn’t realize the mind was capable of this depth, or that meditation could feel this powerful and life-changing. Jhourney is an eight-day retreat (both in-person and online) with a clear goal: helping you enter jhana states. TL;DR I’ve spent years working on myself: CBT and IFS therapy, clinical ketamine therapy, the Hoffman Process, silent meditation retreats. All of them helped in real ways. None of them affected me like this did. I’ve struggled for a long time with self-worth, social anxiety, and imposter syndrome. This retreat gave me the most practical and reliable tool I’ve found for working with those parts of myself. I feel an ethical responsibility to share about this experience, so I wrote a long Substack post documenting what happened and what I learned. I hope it reaches anyone who is struggling with similar things, searching for something deeper, or simply curious about what meditation can unlock. Substack link in reply 🙂
After the @jhourney retreat, I'm starting one small fun project called #JhanaInPublic. The idea is exactly the same as #BuildInPublic, sharing the process openly, the wins and the ugly parts, while you're still in the middle of it. What I believe is the most important thing is not the retreat itself, but how long we can sustain and apply the learnings in real life. What I'm tracking: - Can I still access Jhana at home? - What meaningful difference am I making in daily life? - What am I learning from this process? Hoping that documenting my journey will help future participants assess the effect of the retreat long-term. Week one report below 👇
I went on a Jhourney retreat to learn jhana meditation, which apparently can unlock some of the most blissful states known to humanity. Link to my report below.
