I'm pretty solid at jhanas, as in, I can reliably get up to 5th, and I can touch the others occasionally. Thanks, partially, to Nick Cammarata helping me out with some personal instruction!
And I'm less enthusiastic about them. Still pro jhana, but not as much as my creditable meditative colleagues quoted above. I think there's a lot of personal variation here; many meditators can do them, not all care that much about them. After a jhana phase of a couple of months, I got somewhat bored, and, even during that phase, they didn't really change my desire for pleasure, sexual or otherwise. They're really cool, but, to me, the pleasure that you get from jhana, while intense and lovely, has a flatness and artificiality to it, because it's totally separate from any narrative content and doesn't have much variety. It's like a giant package of mental sour candy that only comes in a few flavors. I revisit them occasionally, and it's fun that I can get myself harmlessly high with my brain if you give me a few undistracted minutes, but, at this point, my meditation life wouldn't feel that impoverished without them.
That said, if you're into meditation, I recommend trying them out, it's worth a try. I think they're easier than is commonly assumed, and it's fascinating watching your brain feedback loop itself into being on drugs. (And then dropping body sensations and doing all the weird stuff that happens in the formless jhanas.) Also, learning them teaches you an interesting attentional skill, the ability to lean on something with your attention without fucking with it. This video is good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K5ypXyF3dY
I'm pretty solid at jhanas, as in, I can reliably get up to 5th, and I can touch the others occasionally. Thanks, partially, to Nick Cammarata helping me out with some personal instruction!
And I'm less enthusiastic about them. Still pro jhana, but not as much as my creditable meditative colleagues quoted above. I think there's a lot of personal variation here; many meditators can do them, not all care that much about them. After a jhana phase of a couple of months, I got somewhat bored, and, even during that phase, they didn't really change my desire for pleasure, sexual or otherwise. They're really cool, but, to me, the pleasure that you get from jhana, while intense and lovely, has a flatness and artificiality to it, because it's totally separate from any narrative content and doesn't have much variety. It's like a giant package of mental sour candy that only comes in a few flavors. I revisit them occasionally, and it's fun that I can get myself harmlessly high with my brain if you give me a few undistracted minutes, but, at this point, my meditation life wouldn't feel that impoverished without them.
That said, if you're into meditation, I recommend trying them out, it's worth a try. I think they're easier than is commonly assumed, and it's fascinating watching your brain feedback loop itself into being on drugs. (And then dropping body sensations and doing all the weird stuff that happens in the formless jhanas.) Also, learning them teaches you an interesting attentional skill, the ability to lean on something with your attention without fucking with it. This video is good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K5ypXyF3dY