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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Confirm Jhana With Facilitator Approval
- Validate jhana reports with facilitator confirmation and look for afterglow and loss of agency as markers.
- Treat facilitator-approved self-reporting as the dataset standard for tracking experiences.
In-Person Helps, Staffing Matters More
- In-person retreats produce slightly higher jhana rates than online, but differences are modest.
- Student-to-teacher ratio and staffing significantly influence success rates.
Inside Versus Outside The System
- Distinguish inside-the-system techniques from outside-the-system metaphysical descriptions.
- 'Not doing' can itself become a strategy when teaching practice steps to students.
