Stephen Zerfas:
In 2018 I broke up with a cofounder and girlfriend at the same time. I went on a meditation retreat, where mental health got so bad I had 3 migraines in 8 days. Just when things couldn’t get any worse, I had an experience that seemed too good to be true. Waves of euphoria and relief moved through me and I quietly cried tears of joy for 60 minutes. It was the most blissful thing that had happened to me in over a year, but the teachers didn’t understand it, and told me to go back to following the breath.

In the months after retreat, I taught myself how to recreate that experience every morning in 15 minutes. The bliss was fun, but I was more excited about the personal growth: it became easy to stay relaxed and focused at work, negative affect and neuroticism plummeted on personality tests, and a fundamental “okayness” increasingly set in. I later discovered advanced meditators call these states “jhanas.”

Alex Gruver:
In late 2022, I broke up with my significant other and less than 24 hours later, I was on a bus to the hospital where my mom was in surgery. Even though I was emotionally devastated, the fact that I had learned the jhanas a few weeks earlier let me to continue to find joy with my eyes closed and support the rest of my family.

In the following years, the jhanas have helped me deal with a harsh inner critic and unlock lasting personality change. I’m excited to teach them — consistently accessing the jhanas is the most important skill I’ve ever learned.