Can regular people do Jhana meditation? | Leigh Brasington | Ten Percent Happier Podcast-Dan Harris
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- What's Jhana meditation and can I do it? Leigh Brasington has been practicing meditation for decades and is one of the most prominent American teachers of Jhanas meditation. The Jhanas are a set of altered states of consciousness associated with profound amounts of bliss, happiness and ecstasy. Entering Jhana is done through meditating with intense concentration and it's considered a controversial topic by many in the Buddhist world. But can regular people access the Jhanas? And are they even real?
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Leigh's version of the Jhanas is definitely a thing! I'll hazard contradicting him and say that the first Jhana is pretty easy to get to. Just work your meditation practice up to 45 min sits of nothing but watching the breath. When you can be completely engrossed in watching your breath at your upper lip for the last several minutes of your sit, you are ready for the first Jhana. When you get in that engrossed state during your next sit, move your attention to a pleasurable sensation. If I grin, I get a fuzzy/warm sensation in my chest. Keep it there as the pleasure spins out of control. This will be a little scary. It's not like LSD or anything. It's more like a roller coaster. If you haven't already, go get Leigh's book. You will need more detailed instructions for the other Jhanas. As you work through the Jhanas spend at least as much time on insight, compassion, mindfulness, etc. The Jhanas are just a means for turbocharging those other practices.
Thanks for sharing!
The sutta mentioned the Jhanas 80% of the time when the Buddha talked about meditation. He only talks about Sati or mindfulness 20% of the time in early suttas. The Burmese did the world a great disservice by eliminating the Jhanas practice out of meditation, against the Buddha’s teachings.
"concentrate on NOT being distracted" That's an interesting framing! It instills more confidence than the "concentrate sufficiently closely on something" which might induce investigation
That was my favorite Leigh Brasington interview, thank you both. Leigh! Have you considered taking the fire kasina as object into the jhanas? I feel you may change your skepticism a little if you gave this practice a shot, really opens a door into the realm of psychic phenomena.
Great interview, I stumbled into the Jhanas about ten years ago and figured it out with the help of the internet. With further research I found Leigh Brasington’s descriptions and instructions, in my opinion you couldn’t have interviewed a better person on the subject.
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for the feedback!
An absolutely Brilliant interview by a skeptic, with a step by step explaination of ALL the 8 steps and more.. Many many practical instructions and thats the reason I am listening to it for the 4th time. I hope we can get a transcript in a blog or newsletter form.
Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it! We will work on providing a transcript!
Or, instead of waiting for the transcript, you may want to buy Leigh's book, "Right Concentration", which includes step-by-step explanations of everything Jhana!
As for the comment about superpowers on the 4th jhana, I will say that you do become much more intuitive, and you can read people much better . People, including strangers, engage in conversation with you, some of which think they know you from somewhere, but they can't quite figure it out. kind of an attractive energy. You carry yourself differently. Perhaps people pick up on the micro expressions and mannerisms
Thanks Dan and Leigh! :D
Dan! I have been doing the nostril sensation mindful breathing for over 10 years now and its my favorite. Its incredibly useful for developing concentration. I use it most of the time, and balance that with regular mindful breathing. Regular mindful breathing does a much better job at calming the body and mind in my experience, and its fun and enjoyable to become skilled in both. Good luck!
Are either of you in arizona? I live in maricopa and work in phoenix.
Also synchronicities become frequent
🙏💙
re: 'ESP' or psi - I would suggest looking into the work of Etzel Cardena; there are a lot of talks by and interviews with Cardena on YT.
No you got the person wrong. It's *Edsel* Ford. She was known to be adept at healing the Natseez with psychic spy type shist. 🔮 👳🏿♂️
Thanks for sharing!
The problem with westerners it seems, is that they love to take spiritual practices from the east and throw away all metaphysical parts, and then conveniently keep only the rational, logical and scientifically explainable parts.
The same thing had happened with yoga when it got imported to the west. Now yoga has been sadly diluted into just a simple physical exercise.
Why was Leigh so afraid to mention about siddhis? For thousands of years, enough practitioners have experienced it to document about these abilities.
In both Hinduism and Buddhism, there are ancient texts/suttas that describe subatomic particles , emptiness of matter, multiverses, endless cycles of creation/destruction of universes, timescales (kalpas) that are measured in billions of years, and so much more that western scientists today have only begun to discover and theorize through quantum physics.
Tell me how did these meditators know of all this 2500 years ago? Just by sheer coincidence?
The Siddhis and metaphysics can be experienced by some advanced practitioners. And the person experienced and interpreted it using his/her own perception. Others cannot know for sure what the person experienced. These things do no lead to the end of dukkha, and it can be a big distraction; at worst it can lead one towards a wrong path. I believe that is why Leigh does not like to talk about it. And it does not interest him.
Getting into the Jhanas is no joke man. Do not take this lightly, meditation is very powerful and things that are very powerful can be quite dangerous
They are overwhelming. Powerful. But they are not dangerous. Insight practice on the other hand is actually dangerous.....leading some people to a pit of hell.