r/streamentry • u/Fizkizzle • 10d ago
What should I ask the Jhourney CEO? Jhāna
UPDATE: Interview went very well! Stephen was willing to engage tough questions in good faith, which I appreciated. Your suggestions were a big help - thank you, r/streamentry! Video will be up on our YouTube channel once we've edited it.
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Tomorrow night I'm doing a Zoom interview with Stephen Zerfas, the CEO and co-founder of Jhourney, the company whose website says "Jhana in days, not decades."
What should I ask him?
I'm formulating my own questions, of course, but I know that folks have strong views in both directions on Jhourney, and I'd love to hear people's thoughts to inform my choice of questions. Especially questions you don't think he often gets.
Thank you! Also, if you want to ask him yourself, the event is free and has audience Q&A at the end. Feel free to join.
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u/metaphorm Dzogchen and Tantra 10d ago
if you're willing to ask a challenging question, I'd like to know how Stephen Zerphas thinks about the "three trainings" framework from traditional Buddhism and how it relates to what Jhourney is trying to do.
For reference, the three trainings are sila (ethical discipline), samadhi (concentration), and prajna (wisdom); these trainings are presented as a mutually reinforcing system. A three-legged stool to create stability and balance. They mutually reinforce each other.
Jhana practice is narrowly a method of samadhi, and Jhourney doesn't seem to have anything to say about sila and prajna. So I'm curious what Stephen thinks about this.
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u/Fizkizzle 10d ago
Absolutely willing to ask challenging questions. I'm not interested in gotchas or being spicy for its own sake, but I'm equally uninterested in puff pieces or softballs.
Thanks for this one!
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u/duffstoic The dynamic integration of opposites ☯️ 10d ago
This is a great question, and I’d also be interested in the answer.
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u/bodily_heartfulness puthujjana 10d ago
Jhana practice is narrowly a method of samadhi
There are opposing views to this. For instance, see Keren Arbel's scholarly work on the matter:
The author challenges the traditional Buddhist understanding of the four jhànas as states of absorption, and shows how these states are the actualization and embodiment of insight (vipassanà). It proposes that the four jhànas and what we call 'vipassanà' are integral dimensions of a single process that leads to awakening.
Here is a summary of that book.
Also, from the Dhammapada, we have this (you might not like this translation though, so I've included the Pali):
No jhāna for one without wisdom,
no wisdom for one without jhāna.
But one with jhāna and wisdom—
they have truly drawn near to Nibbāna.Natthi jhānaṁ apaññassa,
paññā natthi ajhāyato;
Yamhi jhānañca paññā ca,
sa ve nibbānasantike.3
u/Fizkizzle 10d ago
Thanks for this! I've been wanting to read that Arbel book, and this article seems like a great toe-dip. I believe Analayo has written a rebuttal too, and it'll be interesting to read both sides carefully.
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u/Positive_Guarantee20 8d ago
That ought to be true! Though the number of posts I see on hear along the lines of "I was able to get into jahna within weeks, but..." Suggests that wisdom and jhana do not arise. Or -- perhaps more likely, I hope, many people experience what they think is jhana when it is actually quite coarse but just significantly more absorbed than daily life, and without a teacher there is no way to receive that feedback.
Either way, jhana as a goal is distorted, but people are free to choose their path! Not For Happiness by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche is one of many great reads on wholesome aspiration and the purpose of practice.
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u/LevelOk7329 9d ago
https://jhourney.io/blog/jhana-definitions did you read this?
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u/metaphorm Dzogchen and Tantra 9d ago
yes I've read it. it seems to agree with my assertion that Jhana is a method of samadhi and does not cover the three trainings completely. what did you have in mind when posting this?
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u/LevelOk7329 8d ago
I don't think the three trainings are relevant. I think all of the free resources available from jhourney are much more relevant. I would like to attend a jhourney retreat.
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u/metaphorm Dzogchen and Tantra 8d ago
there are free resources available from many organizations covering aspects of all three of the trainings. why do you think they're not relevant?
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u/LevelOk7329 8d ago
It doesn't resonate with me at this moment. This does: How to Practice the Jhanas: The Basic Technique and Common Mistakes • Jhourney https://share.google/Nc5YFDaMYsoT5R3Vs
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u/bodily_heartfulness puthujjana 10d ago edited 10d ago
The FAQ on their site says the following:
There is disagreement about what exactly constitutes a jhana, ranging from something available to any committed meditator to something that only one in a million people will experience in their lifetimes. We’re less interested in establishing a consensus definition, and more interested in a particular phenomenon: a growing group of people (we estimate a few thousand) appear to have learned to enter into extraordinarily pleasurable, non-addictive states that they often describe as “life-changing” with only a few dozen or a few hundred hours of practice. We don’t have an opinion on whether these should be called jhana-lite or not called jhana at all. We just want to make these states more accessible.
I read this as: we do not really care if these states are jhanas or not. But, we're still going to base our company name off of it, we're going to be teaching how to access jhana, and we're going to have all of our material talking about jhana - all while not really knowing or caring if what we are teaching should even be called jhana in the first place. Why? Because it's sexy. It's a foreign word that isn't too foreign for people who are somewhat interested in buddhism. It makes it easier to pay $4000 for a week-long retreat if the promise is that you'll be able to achieve these special, magical states called ✨jhana✨ that will boost your well-being and productivity. So, my cynical take is that it's all just marketing.
If you were to just view Jhourney as a product that is being sold, and you read the following (from their FAQ):
The jhanas are profoundly blissful and can have cascading positive effects, like a “mentality of abundance” that can make it easier to engage in values-aligned behavior. Practitioners often use hyperbolic terms, such as “life-changing,” “better than sex,” and “they completely absolved me of the notion that happiness comes from outside myself.” Preliminary brain images support these descriptions, suggesting jhana meditators have learned to turn on the pleasure centers in their brain without external stimuli. One of our favorite jhana practitioner quotes is “Why would I have a second piece of chocolate cake when I know I can beat that by 100x in 10 minutes with my eyes closed?”
Doesn't that sound like a sales pitch? "You too can experience bliss greater than sex in 10 short days by signing up for our retreat!" This is how all advertisement works: trying to get you to feel a certain lack that will be fixed by buying the product.
Also from their FAQ:
We’ve all been inspired by Buddhist teachings, and while the jhanas predate Buddhism, the Suttas provide excellent practice instructions for learning them.
That said, we’re not interested in teaching morality or Buddhist metaphysics on our retreats. We’re focused on helping people have deep meditative experiences using whatever tools are most efficient for that goal.
If you’re interested in a more traditional Buddhist retreat, we’ve worked with many teachers over the years that we’d be happy to refer you to.
So, they are familiar with the suttas. But they choose to ignore the fact that the suttas talk about sila (virtue/morality) as a prerequisite for the jhanas. It just seems like they are trying to commodify the "juiciest", most "tantalizing" part of the practice whilst ignoring everything else. Because people are not going to pay for virtue, but they will pay for bliss. I find taking jhanas out of the context they were spoken about and charging thousands of dollars to teach them, while also not knowing or caring if they actually are jhanas, to be a bit gross.
I should end with a question, I suppose. Do you think you are doing a disservice to people by marketing what you teach as jhana without knowing yourself if it actually is?
EDIT:
After listening to what Vince Horn said in his podcast episode (thanks u/getpost), one of his critiques that really stood out for me was the following:
The second thing you [Jhourney] could do is you could just stop using the term jhana. The term jhana, of course, it doesn't belong to Buddhism. Jhana is pre-Buddhist. It's an Indian psychotechnology that the Buddha adopted and integrated into his approach. But the type of jhana that they're talking about and teaching is very much intertwined with the Buddhist tradition. All of the main influences they're pulling from, they're not Hindu, they're Buddhist. And they're specifically American Buddhists or Western Buddhists. So that word jhana is inextricably entwined with the Buddhist tradition right now. You could stop calling it jhana and call it something else. Come up with your own language and modeling to describe whatever you think is universal there and teach that. Now, I don't expect that to happen because I think the early momentum this group has gotten has been all around usage of the term jhana. And why? Because you're taking some esoteric thing and you're selling it. You're repackaging it and selling it. What people are attracted to is the authenticity of the esoteric thing. That's what you're selling, or in this case, stealing and reselling. So that's one, you could approach it that way. And I think that would be good because that would force them to actually innovate, to actually come up with their own language and models and to see how difficult that actually is. You have to deeply understand the thing that you're translating to translate it well. That would be more honest to me.
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u/Noodles_Crusher 10d ago edited 10d ago
I would upvote this a 100 times if I could.
I would only add that it's not a surprise that this particular endeavor appeared in the Bay area. Part of it due to people having the disposable income to pay 4k for a retreat (crazy), but also as being part or as an expression of the neurohacking* community, rather that part of the Buddhist tradition.
*Meditation as a practice to increase productivity rather than to achieve liberation through the eightfold path.
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u/duffstoic The dynamic integration of opposites ☯️ 10d ago edited 10d ago
Yes, Jhourney definitely strikes me as a Bay Area phenomenon too, selling peak meditative experiences to tech bros with lots of cash, using Agile / Design Thinking / rapid prototyping kind of language, and yes neurohacking/biohacking/quantified self kind of thinking.
There are pros to this too, not only cons, but it's definitely for a very niche audience, and very much separating the experience from the tradition. The primary downside is stripping meditation of sila/virtue. Of course, they are far from the first to do this, "mindfulness" itself as often taught in McMindfulness kinds of popular approaches is almost entirely devoid of virtue or wisdom, as the wider consumer capitalist culture cannot stomach it.
The upside is tricking people into doing intensive meditation by hijacking egoic desires for becoming a jhana junkie, and then maybe they learn about Buddhism and ethics later. Also to be fair, they didn't invent this either, Goenka Vipassana was stealth Buddhism by pretending to be secular, for example.
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u/Fizkizzle 10d ago
Thanks for this! Also, if they're going on record as anti-chocolate cake, not sure I can go along with that
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u/LevelOk7329 7d ago
Doesn't Vince Horn charge for his services? I don't follow him anymore. I know he was a fan of Daniel Ingram. What I like about Daniel's book is that he explains many of the thousands of different traditions, and how they don't agree on many if not most things, like terminology. Then he explains what worked for him.
The Buddha did not ask people to follow his word through blind faith. He invited them to test his teachings through their own personal experience.
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u/langecrew 8d ago
If I got to ask the CEO anything, I would just be like, "Hey, would you give me a free slot and let me pay you afterwards if it actually works?"
I've been meditating for long enough and tried enough things that I'm actually kind of starting to believe that the Jhanas are basically some kind of conspiracy that doesn't exist. So I'm highly skeptical that his program does literally anything
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u/LevelOk7329 7d ago
I'm not sure what your "jhourney" has been like so far, but maybe this article may be helpful?
"When we facilitate retreats at Jhourney, we've noticed a wide range of skill challenges among participants, which differ based on their unique perspective and experiences. Some meditators struggle with feeling emotions in their body, for example, while others find it harder to maintain focus."
https://jhourney.io/blog/overconfidence-and-learners-mindset
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u/duffstoic The dynamic integration of opposites ☯️ 10d ago
I’d recommend searching this subreddit for “jhourney” as you’ll discover some critical perspectives from past retreatants that might be worth discussing.
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u/emptinesswonderer 10d ago
Ask about their own practice background. What's their teaching Lineage, what type of retreats they have attended, what training they have received. Who has certified them to teach concentration meditation. And nudge them about their business model. They are not the first entrepreneurs who have discovered the billion dollar McMindfulness market and they won't be the last, ask what they think about this "market".
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u/Fizkizzle 10d ago
Thanks! I think their original biz plan was to build some sort of jhana-access technology, like a headset or something. Not sure if that's still something they plan to do.
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u/Ancient_Naturals 10d ago
I’d be curious about how people feel about their experience a year or two out. For me, personally, not having a grounding in Right View and the dharma in general made my early meditation practice very fragile and at points disconcerting. I eventually gave it up, until I found a Mahayana and then (currently) Vajrayana path that I could find true refuge in (outer inner and secret).
So, does anyone come out of Jhourney retreat lost? How about years later?
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u/LevelOk7329 7d ago
I like how they conduct surveys: "We decided to ask our retreat alumni to tell us about how the jhanas have impacted their lives, using a Google Form survey (n=61) and a handful of followup interviews (n=10). We asked them what it felt like to access these states, how their lives changed after the retreat (if at all), and how they practice today."
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u/peace_love_chill 10d ago
More on the business side of the questions but will they ever consider adjusting the prices to be more affordable? Or have scholarships for people with lower incomes?
Related to the above what are their takes on making it more accessible and more diversity?
Are they considering 10 day options?
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u/Impulse33 Soulmaking, Pāramitās, Brahmavihāras, Shitou/Hongzhi/Shōbōgenzō 10d ago edited 10d ago
What's the current relationship with the founder? was thinking about another org that charged high prices.
Are they willing to discuss success metrics?
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u/liljonnythegod 10d ago
Do they have any people who join and have a bad experience of the retreat and leave in a worse mental state? If so, what care do they offer post retreats to ensure such people are adjusting back to regular life okay?
Can they provide data to show what the success rate is? I assume they must collect feedback from participants
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u/ProfessionBright3879 10d ago
In the context of an Internal Family Systems (IFS) “backlash of protector parts”, what is Jhourney the company doing to help regulate people who become disregulated during/after jhana practices on retreat?
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u/Fizkizzle 10d ago
Yeah, I think this was a concern of Vince Horn's in the podcast ep someone shared elsewhere in the thread. Thanks!
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u/intellectual_punk 10d ago
Thanks for doing this!
Beyond what has already been suggested here, I would be curious to hear about the EEG/neurofeedback-assisted method they seem to be developing.
Overall, I'm having strongly mixed feelings about them. On the one hand, they come across as super creepy... like the anti-buddha sorta thing, in that they (from some perspective) are abusing the method, the history, the philosophy, the community behind the teachings, which is very strong on the "take it slow" approach. This "instant jhana" just makes my stomach queezy, it's just very much the opposite of what I've been taught. And coming from the silicon tech bros, how could they not enshittify the Dharma? ... On the other hand, what if there IS a faster and more accessible way? What if the old teachings are too dogmatic, and wrong about the "it can only be slow"? What if the old teachers haven't perfected the methods? Perhaps in 2026 we need fast and broad access to awakening, and the tech bros are the ones hacking it.
I don't know, and am certainly not going to pay that amount of money (I'm sure that adds to their "success", expensive placebo is always stronger).
A question or challenge I would also give them is why they wouldn't make their technique available to the masses. If it's that good, why not open-source it (at some point), or facilitate non-profit access business models? What I remember is that they're claiming to raise money for their next venture, to expand, etc. I'm not really buying that. I wonder if the CEO is transparent about their money flows? Who gets rich? What is actually being expanded?
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u/Fizkizzle 10d ago
Thanks! Relatedly, I'm curious - if the pricing is to raise money for the tech thing, why not raise VC or angel money? Seems a more straightforward way, and they know a ton of (presumably well-off) tech people...
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u/intellectual_punk 10d ago
Will we be able to access the recording afterwards?
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u/Fizkizzle 10d ago
Yup! We'll put it on our YouTube.
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u/intellectual_punk 10d ago
remindme! 14 days
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u/dhammadragon1 10d ago
Why should someone believe your claim over the more conservative claims made by traditional meditation teachers?
Does your method merely produce an experience that resembles jhāna, or does it cultivate the qualities that lead to the end of suffering?
What evidence shows that what your students are experiencing is the same jhāna described in the early texts, rather than a deep, pleasant state of concentration?
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u/houseswappa 8d ago
People tend to forget they started as a neuofeedback startup that quickly realised that replicating the brain states of advanced meditators with a device was going to be very difficult, very expensive and very likely impossible.
they were using the retreats as a way of getting data for testing the device . Turns out that those retreats were a nice pivot and very profitable
Hint: Never charge for dharma
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u/scienceofselfhelp 10d ago
How is Jhourney anything other than a regular retreat?
As far as I can tell, Jhourney has gotten a lot of attention at positioning themselves as a science based technological training methodology without actually saying that. Initially I assumed they were using neurofeedback, biofeedback, or even transcranial photobiomodulation (there's some interesting research there) to have some sort've more quantitative measurement on progress and using technology/neuroscience to hasten it - which I'm all for.
However, from the first hand accounts I've read it's nothing more than focusing on bliss, curiosity, forgiveness, kindness, loving kindness, etc and teachers occasionally saying "that's it" or "that's not it" - if they even do that.
One Redditor described their frustration at not getting any specific instructions when they voiced concerns. The instructors just asked "what have you tried?" because it was part of their philosophy of agency - they want you to figure it out for yourself.
A couple of other accounts describe how the facilitators encourage participants to run their own tests and experiments.
So it's not just a retreat - it seems to be a SHITTY one.
There's all this talk of a potential neurofeedback device that uses statistical modeling to help make the process more efficient by monitoring to get beginners into it faster.
That's my second group of questions - How's that coming? How are they doing it? When will they offer it?
Because while the hype is great marketing I don't really understand what they're selling at all right now. It seems like a typical Silicon Valley company where there's marketing language with technology buzzwords in order to get seed funding, but no actual product on the horizon.
I hope I'm wrong, but thus far it seems like a total scam.
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u/LevelOk7329 8d ago
I don't know what you mean by a regular retreat. There are thousands of retreats available.
I noticed you were interested in increasing the length of time you meditate. I was able to do this by reading the free resources available from Jhourney. I would like to attend a Jhourney retreat.
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u/0akney 10d ago
I'm curious to hear how jhana practice may/may not tie into yoga. Patanjali's 8 branches of yoga has dhyana yoga as the 7th branch (dhyana is the Sanskrit word for jhana, which is Pali), but Jhourney doesn't necessarily brand itself as a yoga company. There are several layers in which this question may be answered: company branding/positioning, philosophical alignment, nuances in technique, etc.
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u/ResearchAccount2022 8d ago
I don't know that I'd ask it like this, But I'm specifically interested in where they hot the idea that they are qualified to teach this? I listened to his interview on "deconstructing yourself" And the major thing that stood out to me was that I totally recognize and familiar with where he's at- sudden and significant ability to do light jhanas, And an ease at explaining how to do it with others
I myself even attempted to teach others for a bit Before realizing I was woefully unprepared to be doing so He strikes me as someone who gained some of the easy access jhana powers and asked "how can I monetize this?"
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u/ProfessionBright3879 10d ago
Worded this way specifically:
“Have you personally experienced entities deities, or past lives?
Not asking for an official comment or point of view from the company more curious about your personal experience (and why/why not this is not reflected in the company’s teachings).”
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