Awareness Explorers 196: Stephen Zerfas, Guest Explorer
31 snips
Sep 26, 2025 
In the conversation, Stephen Zerfas, CEO and co-founder of Jhourney, shares his journey from desperation to discovering transformative jhana meditation states. He explains how jhanas facilitate a positive feedback loop between attention and emotion, helping cultivate profound experiences of gratitude and peace. Stephen discusses using technology to enhance meditation retreats and emphasizes the importance of integrating these practices for emotional processing. Listeners enjoy a guided meditation while exploring the interplay of phenomenology and mindfulness.
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Breakthrough On A Desperate Retreat
- Stephen Zerfas discovered deep gratitude and bliss after changing techniques on a 10-day silent retreat during a personal crisis.
- He replicated that state through months of daily experiments and research.
Jhanas As Feedback Loops
- Jhanas can be seen as positive feedback loops between attention and emotion that amplify states like gratitude or peace.
- They often arise by reducing mental tension and embracing experience rather than forcing laser-like focus.
Make Jhanas Reliably Accessible
- Aim for deterministic access to the first four jhanas so you can reliably enter them within an hour.
- Use short daily practices to convert repeated altered states into lasting trait-level changes.
