We had someone guide himself toward Jhana live on our podcast. And he narrated himself from start to finish.

Jhanas are meditative bliss states and they traditionally require thousands of hours of practice. But Stephen Zerfas and his team at Jhourney are changing that—creating retreats where most participants hit a Jhana in their first week.

Dan Shipper went to one of their retreats earlier this year, and it was by far the best he’s been to. So we had Stephen on AI & I to show us how he gets into a Jhana and what the future of super wellbeing might look like.

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Timestamps:

Introduction: 00:00:56

A primer on Jhana meditation: 00:01:18

Zerfas guides himself towards Jhana: 00:05:47

Why Jhana is about resting into what already exists: 00:36:04

Approaching meditation with play and curiosity: 00:39:30

The potential pitfalls of Jhana meditation: 00:45:04

How to hack your personality through memory reconsolidation: 00:48:21

Why Jhana won't let you numb yourself to real problems: 00:53:10

How Jhana meditation has changed Zerfas: 00:55:36

How Jhourney is using AI to make Jhanas more accessible: 01:09:41

Links to resources mentioned in the episode:

Stephen Zerfas: Stephen Zerfas
Jhourney: https://www.jhourney.io/
The Donella Meadows book Zerfas refers to: Thinking in Systems: A Primer