Astral Codex Ten

jhanas

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jhanas

Article

jhanas is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 3 times across 3 issues between October 29, 2021 and January 04, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as ““elegant explanation of what the heck is going on with jhanas.””; “there are religious and social incentives to claim to be able to experience Jhanas”; “Jhanas should show increased activation compared to the rest state in the dopamine reward system”. It most often appears alongside Buddhism, jhāna, The Buddha.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 3
  • Issue count: 3
  • First seen: October 29, 2021
  • Last seen: January 04, 2023

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Jhanas and the Dark Room Problem
October 29, 2021 · Original source
I find this to be an elegant explanation of what the heck is going on with jhanas, more convincing than my previous theory. It’s also a strong contender as a theory of beauty - a little different in emphasis from Schmidhuber’s theory, but eventually arriving at the same place: beauty is that which is compressible but has not already been compressed.
Inline links: my previous theory, Schmidhuber’s theory
Highlights From The Comments On Jhanas
October 31, 2022 · Original source
[Original post here]
Inline links: here
Okay, “half” is an exaggeration. But by my count we had 21 people who claimed to have experienced jhanas (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21), and 7 who said they were pretty sure it wasn’t real as described (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).
Inline links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
I've experienced samatha jhanas. I don't do it so much now. The first few times you get on the edge of 1st jhana, it's difficult to achieve, because you see the wave of pleasure approaching, and grasp for it, and that grasping takes you away from it. So it's a careful balancing act of pleasure/desire in the first place to get there, which you have to master to some degree. To even get to 1st jhana, you have to internally figure out some stuff about the craving/pleasure dynamic on a subconscious, mechanical level.
Even More Bay Area House Party
January 04, 2023 · Original source
“Glad you asked! I’m working on a new translation of the Pali Canon. I translate nirvana as ‘freedom’, maya as ‘fake news’, and Mahayana as ‘monster truck’. Gādhrakūta is ‘Mt. Eagle’. Some parts don’t even have to be retranslated! The sutras say that you attain the formless jhanas by ‘passing beyond bodily sensations and paying no attention to perceptions of diversity’. See, it’s perfect! Red state conservatives already hate paying attention to diversity!”