I just emerged from a 7 day Jhana Meditation retreat in Northern, California and it was delicious!
I have always had a deep desire to do a meditation retreat but have heard a fair share of horror stories about sitting still for 10 hours a day with no movement or journaling allowed - yikes! These stories have unfortunately really kept me from meditation retreats and also made me judge my own practice.
There are so many expectations you hear about meditation: you must sit still, you must focus, you must concentrate, you must do it for 30m at least, you must do it every day. For an Eastern Practice it has always felt oddly Western in its rigidity. I have never considered myself a great meditator because I have trouble sitting still, figit constantly, prefer movement in my meditation and feel most ‘connected’ to myself, the world around me and the universe when I’m on a difficult hike to a rocky summit.
I have known that I can access heightened states of consciousness and awareness due to my lifetime awareness of being a natural born intuitive and empath; and all the body / energy awareness it brings; and through my energetic & sound healing practice of 15 years. I never had words for these heightened states and would call them just that - “heightened states of consciousness,” “altered states,” being “blissed out,” or “in flow.”
As it turns out, these are Jhanic states: Jhana is defined as a meditative state of profound stillness and ’collectedness’ in which the mind becomes fully immersed and absorbed.
Like other epic crossovers (i.e. rap music falling in love with country and vice versa) I find it beautiful that the engineers and tech guys of Silicon Valley have hacked meditation using Left Brain techniques and skills. The facilitators at this retreat described it best when they said they “are using Left Brain Techniques to teach Right Brain Concepts.”
Think of it as a drop down menu:
Try to Relax, is it working? If yes, continue, if no, see if you can enjoy. Is enjoying working? If yes, continue, if no, try to observe, and so on and so on. The pillars they taught gave me confidence to ease into the techniques - and my favorite part - if you get distracted just allow the distraction to be part of the experience. ‘Distraction is traction,’ as they say - this is one of the biggest missing pieces for me! You mean I can invite all my thoughts and feelings, colors, songs from high school, bird noises, random dreams, “what am I going to eat later, when is my next hike” thoughts into my meditation?!
And you know what?
It worked! Instead of trying to “quiet my mind,” I opened it up instead. Instead of trying to stop my thoughts or single focus on an object, i loved every thought, every feeling, every breeze, every birdsong, every murmur of someone talking in the background, any feeling into my awareness and loved it deeply. I started to see my distracted thoughts as a little kid running into a house and interrupting a conversation - the kid is just excited to share - he deserves love and attention - and the more he gets it the more he goes back outside to play. When you try to “stop” your thoughts you are literally putting resistance up, and not surprisingly getting resistance in return.
I like to explain the Jhana’s through my hiking analogy as that was the epiphany that I had that I realized I’ve been doing them my whole life. Maybe this will help you connect to your own pathway to the Jhanas:
For me, Jhana 1 is like being on a hike and seeing the top of the mountain I am going to summit: there is ecstatic, excitement, high levels of vibration and energy flowing through my body, almost as if I want to wiggle out of my skin, the defined area of my body begins to dissolve and become one with the atmosphere.
~ Important note I also realize this is why people don’t like hiking with me haha!! I get into these rapturous states and they’re questioning why are we friends ~
Jhana 2 is like summing the mountain: the euphoria starts to dissolve into a softer happiness, a gratitude for my body that I did it, a contentment, a non-egoic sense of accomplishment.
Jhana 3 is after I summit a mountain I send energy to everyone I love. I call it the Care Bear Stare and if you know me personally or watched the 80’s cartoon The Care Bears, you know exactly what I’m talking about. I send love and appreciation to all my friends all over the world, everyone I’ve ever met and even people i used to know. This is my way of offering friendliness and appreciation to everyone that has journeyed with me in this life.
Jhana 4 is either a) the hike down the mountain or b) when I am in bed later holding the deepest gratitude in all of the cells of my body. The most peaceful state of returning, of relaxing.
Grant, one of my meditation facilitators invited me to dive a bit deeper into Jhana 4 so later that night I did and at first it smelled like dead leaves in a forest if it had rained yesterday, the deepest most beautiful sweet delicious and dead leaves earth smell. I felt my body sink into the earth like I was being buried, but in a gentle and sweet sense - my body was returning to the earth. I felt cozy, held by the dirt around me, I felt as if my body and energy was being recycled for something new and then immediately the visual changed to spring and little buds and flowers and moss started growing on the top of the earth over me and I felt complete - that I had completed this natural and sacred cycle.
Later I journeyed with another amazing facilitator - Judah - and in writing about my experience it accidentally turned itself into a poem:
Luminous light with effervescent sparkles
Grounded dissolving bones into the earth
Shallow breaths deepen, pumping diaphragm to ignite the spark of the Solar Plexus
Light where there was darkness
Play tension like a guitar string, a song is possible
When you are powerful you don’t need bad patterns to make you bigger than others
Fractal flowers spiral into dresses with invitation to
A dance hosted in a nighttime canopy of planets and stars
Infinity folds back on itself
What is the experience?
What is experience?
Anything I try to hold slips immediately from my mind, off the shelf and into the void
There is only now
Here
And right now
There is only everything all at once at any time
Inside of nothing cradles everything
Everything turns to nothing
Stephen, another facilitator, had mentioned how when you read a poem the first time it’s lovely but after you figure out these jhanic states it’s like an instructional manual and I couldn’t agree more!
Overall, my deepest realization was that I meditate best when I am not trying to, and that is my playful and curious door into the Jhanas, meditative states, heightened consciousness, altered awareness and being blissed out.
~
So, if you are like me and have struggled with meditating or the idea of meditating - let’s begin together! Here are some helpful hints and phrases from retreat I find invaluable:
What are you curious about in your experience right now?
What needs to be acknowledged?
Can you relax, enjoy and observe?
Can you forgive yourself for not understanding.
Nothing exists in our experience independent of how we relate to it.
Can you let yourself be overwhelmed by your experience?
If you’re interested in learning more: I found the retreat to be delightful, the facilitators fantastic. Thanks to Stephen, Judah, Grant, Owen & Jack
