Trinley Goldenberg

Recently someone transgressed against me. Hard. However, it was accidental. And I knew it. I understood it. And, yet, I was "stuck". Something was amiss. We discussed it, they apologized and said it was an accident, I said that I knew it was and that, still, something was "stuck". Some trauma perhaps or whatever that had been triggered and that I needed to recruit them to help me solve it. This was surprising and difficult for them: the relational context changing from two-sided with one side being apologetic to being shared one-sided, both trying to figure something out. We stayed in this "stuck" place for quite a bit, hemming and hawing, nothing really happening until finally it hit me. Suddenly I knew exactly what I needed to do. I needed to forgive them. This may sound "basic" or something, and I think I'd agree, before this experience. And I've done tons of forgiveness meditation. (@delsonarmstrong's forgiveness meditation to be exact.) I've forgave myself, others, I've blasted forgiveness. And, yet, I think I didn't really know what I was doing. (And that's okay, and I endorse it: you gotta LARP it til you make it.) It was only in this moment that I really understood, in my bones and in my heart, what forgiveness is and what it feels like. Someone had transgressed against me —accidentally, but still — and now they owed me. They had a debt towards me to be repaid somehow. Forgiveness is the act of — truly, in your heart — void that debt. "I owe you." "No, you don't." Again, I read what I'm writing and it seems so… basic. But the experience itself is very, very special. There was a great release, a weight that was lifted from me, a big boulder that was pressing against my heart lifted and, with that, tons of energy spreading from it through my body, shimmering, tingling… And the other person… They couldn't believe it. I think they never received *actual* forgiveness. And I get it. It's the first time I've given it too. I think it brought us way closer and that we're both retrospectively happy they (accidentally) transgressed in the first place given where it led us.

This is basically the default way we approach motivation and productivity

Maybe I am too emotionally immature for this bc if my husband came home after the gym and told me he’s lusting after a big booty bitch in the gym I would go into the gym and cancel my husbands membership in person myself + make make him workout from home. He needs to confess to the priest or his cousin bc ain’t no way my man going to tell me he lusts after women in the gym while I struggle to find the time to go being home with the kids. Smh

Stephen, I respect and admire a lot of your work and you clearly have a special talent for meditative pedagogy. So I offer these comments in the spirit of truth-seeking rather than as some kind of dunk. But you must know that you are relying on a dishonest sleight of hand when you push this line that the type of jhanas you teach at Jhourney are ones that were normally thought to take years previously. From what I understand, Jhourney teaches non-nimitta based jhanas. Since at least 40 years ago when Ayya Khema started raising more widespread public awareness of non-nimitta based jhanas (which were widely practiced traditionally long before then), it’s always been taught that they are very much achievable within a matter of days. By contrast, it is the nimitta-based jhanas that are taught to take months or more to master. This, as I’m sure you know, is a different type of meditation with different fruits. Literally every teacher for decades that has ever taught non-nimitta based jhanas has spoken to them being largely accessible within a matter of days. Ayya Khema’s own students report that on her one week retreats had a ~50% success rate of experiencing Jhana. 95% for the month long retreats. TWIM, who’ve been teaching since the 90s, report that 80% of their students hit 4th jhana on their 10 day retreats, and say the 1st jhana usually takes significantly less time. Thanissaro Bikkhu - who has also been teaching non-nimitta based jhanas since the 90s - discourages people from placing too much emphasis on time-based goals, but he has run 7 day retreats that he says are aimed at hitting jhana and every indication is that he sees it as very feasible in these sorts of time frames. Leigh Brasington tends to suggest 10 days is more optimal, but we’re still talking a short amount of days, not *years*. If we were to seek a gray area exception, it would be Rob Burbea who preferred to have a month (not years!) to teach non-nimitta based jhanas, but this was more down to his philosophy that deliberately marinating in pre-jhana piti and then taking a long time to really acclimatise to each jhana was highly beneficial, rather than some limit on the efficacy of his technique. Honestly, in the 20+ years since I first heard about the jhanas, I’ve never met or otherwise heard of a single person that teaches non-nimitta jhanas who says they take anything more than a matter of days, or at most weeks, to attain (with the latter always a question of preference and value rather than pedagogical potency). As I’m sure you well know, it’s the nimitta-based jhanas that are said to more often take months or years to master. This is because nimitta-based jhanas are an entirely different meditation technique. The general consensus from people who have mastered both nimitta-based jhanas and non-nimitta-based jhanas is that the latter are a different phenomena - usually experienced as a much deeper absorption - hence the different time frame. That’s not to say nimitta-based jhanas are inherently “better” than non-nimitta based jhanas for any given goal someone might have. It’s just to say they are different techniques with different fruits and hence have different timeframes. So when you say something like: “Jhana has a reputation as something that takes years [but] 58.5% of our students reached it within a week.” What you’re really saying is: “[Nimitta-Based] Jhana has a reputation as something that takes years [but] 58.5% of our students reach [Non-Nimitta-Based jhanas] within a week [which is roughly consistent with how long it’s always taken non-nimitta jhanas to be reached when taught by other teachers and organizations historically]” By leaving out the bit in brackets, it’s clear you’re trying to give the impression that Jhourney has achieved a remarkable breakthrough in reducing jhana timescales, when in reality you’re conflating two different sub-categories of meditation and presenting results that are entirely ordinary for the category you actually teach. The repeated pushing of this rhetoric is polluting the spiritual commons. It’s giving people the impression that if they don’t pay multiple thousands of dollars to attend your retreat they’re missing out on some super duper secret method of getting into non-nimitta jhana 52x+ quicker than normal, which simply isn’t the case. It’s also spreading implicit mistruth about the rest of the jhana teaching ecosystem. Given that Jhourney’s vision is to educate people about the jhanas, spreading this kind of disinformation seems very counter to your mission. It also seems totally unnecessary when by all accounts Jhourney is an extremely successful business, with very high demand from organic word of mouth and you are very good at what you do. As a big advocate of both nimitta-based and non-nimitta-based jhanas, I find so much to admire about your mission to bring non-nimitta-jhanas to new audiences And I can see why this sort of hyperbole might seem tempting when bootstrapping a business. But at what point do you think perpetuating this myth becomes irresponsible and, actually, unnecessary?

Judgement keeps you from connecting.

I used to think it'd be great for people to go after men's sex drives instead of just women's. I was wrong. This sucks. We've neutered men. We've got an entire generation of guys too scared to even talk to a woman. Men internalizing the idea they're creepy for having perfectly natural desires is a net loss for everyone. Millennials at least attempted a sane phase of "Don't judge women when you like sex too!" Now we've got puritanism on steroids & I don't even get where it's coming from cuz it's not always coming from religion. What is happening 😭