Jhana Meditation Effects
A simple meditation practice of focusing on the breath that eventually leads to Jhana brings many benefits to be enjoyed as fruits of the practice.
Benefits of Meditation
Jhana meditation offers many benefits for meditators, covering the physical, mental, and spiritual dimensions of well-being. These benefits are supported by both scientific research and personal reports from people who have experienced profound effects of a simple meditation practice of focusing on the breath.
Physical Benefits of Meditation
Probably the biggest and most noticeable benefit of your meditation practice if you’re doing it right and consistently is a reduction in the stress levels you typically experience.
Stress Relief – Meditation gives you a sense of calm over time as you practice. Not just calm in your session, but outside of that, in everyday life. Meditation has a way of changing us within so that we are less affected by things that typically caused us a lot of stress, apprehension, and anxiety.
After a couple of weeks or months of a steady meditation practice of only twenty minutes to thirty minutes per day, you will notice that your ability to handle stress and to handle your emotions gets increasingly better.
Increases Immunity – Meditation enhances your immune function. Scientific studies have shown that your immune system can strengthen and result in fewer bouts with the common cold, and you’ll enjoy a faster recovery from illnesses.
Helps Chronic Pain – If you are one of those people who have chronic pain that you can’t seem to get a handle on, meditation can give you a new perception of pain that isn’t so negative. It really can reshape your idea about pain and it’s manageability.
Focusing on the pain in your back or legs as you sit in meditation can really help you to see that pain is always temporary and in flux. Without this viewpoint and change in perception we tend to see pain as constant throughout the experience and never changing. Never manageable.
With meditation, you can see that pain is nothing more than a mental feeling. A thought really. It’s a thought produced by the body’s discomfort. Sometimes changing position can ease the pain or erase it altogether. Sometimes focusing relentlessly on the pain and watching it in action will help you to see that there are moments where you feel no pain. It isn’t as continuous as you thought.
With a real effort to study pain as it occurs, you can come to a new view of pain as temporary, bearable, and sometimes even meaningless.
There were times when I focused on the pain exclusively during sessions and within minutes, sometimes tens of minutes, the pain disappeared and didn’t bother the mind anymore. The mind simply dealt with it without causing anxiety or duress.
Meditation’s Mental Benefits
Improved Concentration – The intense focus and sustained concentration on the breath as you meditate develops mental abilities. As a person with ADD/ADHD, I was able to finally sit and concentrate on a subject for hours at a time after some months of meditation. I even wrote a couple of dozen books!
This one benefit can make it worth it for you too if you suffer from a short attention span. At this point, I have written 100,000 word novels, posted 500+ videos at YouTube, and posted thousands of articles on my websites. Meditation has helped me reach this point. In fact, I believe it is entirely responsible for my newfound ability to concentrate for long durations.
Emotion Reduction – As you meditate in your daily session and practice some mindfulness as you do your daily activities, your mind will become more balanced, less moved by problems and emotional topics or circumstances.
You’ll be able to see the emotion starting inside you – see your attachment to something – and be able to let it go more easily by just noticing it and questioning whether it is worth it to get upset by whatever it is.
Meditation gives you balance and allows you to act purposefully more than emotionally. This happens quickly in meditation, within the first few months you should see a difference. It’s so important to continue to meditate even when you don’t see results after just days or weeks. The benefits are there and are developing, you will notice them soon.
Patience!
Lucidity and Clarity of Mind – Through a regular meditation practice of focusing on the breath at the nose, you can feel an increased clarity of mind, enhanced cognition, and enjoy an improvement in your decision making abilities.
With meditation, you begin to act smartly and less reactively based on emotions. Most of the rational decisions we make are best made with very little emotion, aren’t they? In fact, if we could remove emotion from all decisions, we’d all make much smarter decisions.
Meditation helps us do this without us even knowing it is happening. Until we notice, and then we can really revel in the benefits of this amazing activity.
Spiritual Benefits of Meditation
Deepened Insight – A steady meditation practice helps develop profound states of insight and self-understanding, leading to insights into the nature of reality, the impermanent nature of existence, and the interconnectedness of all phenomena.
As your meditation practice matures, you’ll have more moments of experiencing the “all is one” or being one with the world and universe. It’s like a doorway to expanding your view of your place in the cosmos. You are not separate from it, but an integral part of it.
Elimination of Ego – The ego gradually lessens with repeated meditation on the breath, Samadhi, and Jhana practice. There are times during your session where you will not notice the ego in operation at all. It seems to be shut off or absent entirely. This is a normal part of practice and something to strive for because it will help you solve the problems you face in daily life.
Awakening/Enlightenment – In traditional Buddhist teachings, Jhana meditation is regarded as a pathway to awakening and enlightenment, leading to the transcendence of suffering and the realization of one’s true nature.
Buddha said that you cannot reach enlightenment without at least a short experience of the Jhanas. Jhana meditation is crucial for attaining nibbana in Buddhism.
Scientific Research
Stress Reduction – Many studies have shown the positive effects of meditation on both physical and mental health. Reductions in stress, anxiety, depression, and improvements in cognitive function, emotional regulation, and overall well-being are regularly reported in diverse studies.
Brain Changes – Longitudinal studies in neuroscience have shown that meditation practice, such as Jhana meditation, can make measurable changes in the brain, including increased gray matter density in regions associated with attention, memory, and emotional regulation. Meditation physically changes your brain!
Personal Experiences
Over the 20+ years of my personal journey with meditation and Jhana meditation, I have enjoyed countless benefits as a direct result of my practice.
Jhana meditation has helped me to drop the ego, at times completely, and allowed me to enjoy life in a way that I never knew was possible. I’ve decreased stress and anxiety, fear of the future and past, and gained a much more balanced and even unmoveable spirit in the face of some stress and difficulties.
I’ve enjoyed a disenchantment with life that put me on a path of minimalist living for decades. I’ve enjoyed freedom from many things that used to bother me in the past, in my past life you can say. I have a greater tolerance for change, for diversity, for outright adversity.
I have a much more open-minded view of people, of the world, of nature, of the world we live in. I have become compassionate and empathetic perhaps most of all. I am now enjoying what I can only describe as the perfect state.
The state I wanted to reach is now a part of my everyday experience. I can live as “Vern” with my ego somewhat remaining, and enjoy the beautiful things in life like my two daughters. At any time I have a stressful moment, I can drop back into an always present non-dual awareness state I previously called the “Flatline mind.”
I couldn’t ask for more to be honest. My meditation journey led to a wonderful place.
I’m not sitting in a Buddhist temple or in a cave taking visitors who ask esoteric questions of me. I’m living life in a more helpful, social, realistic, exciting, and pleasurable way than that.
And, just for clarity, any time I’m talking about Jhana and what I experienced and what I teach, I’m referring to the Visuddhimagga Jhanas, the deep absorption Jhanas. Some other teachers speak about other states they call Jhana that I refer to as the Sutta Jhanas.
My take on the Jhanas (video)
Effects and Benefits Specifically of Jhana Meditation
Jhana meditation will give you all of the benefits mentioned above and some specific ones we will talk about below.
The effects of the Jhana state – especially a strong one that lasts for some minutes or hours, can last a long time. When you open your eyes after the focused Jhana has stopped – you can remain in an odd state where you are not entirely your old self. You are you, sure. But there’s a difference.
You are maybe missing some of the wants, drives, ambitions, needs, and motivations that you are usually infused with. These things seem to be gone, suppressed, or just not available to the mind – not fueling the mind at all.
Your ego has diminished somewhat. Maybe a lot.
The mind can remain quite concentrated and ‘free’ for a number of minutes, and even hours after experiencing Jhana. That’s the power of this state. It seems to rewire your brain to make it more logical, less emotionally reactive, and more insightful than you were before. The change over time is so profound, it is like night and day.
I often ask people in coaching – are you sure you WANT this? The change can bring about a new you. It’s wise to give real consideration to what you might be like as a person post-Jhana. Your ego will surely decrease. Your views on topics of the world will surely change. Your compassion and desire to help will increase markedly. If you consider these positive changes, then come along for the journey.
Takeaways
Meditation and especially Jhana Meditation offers many dozens of benefits for those with a steady practice of even only once per day for 20 minutes at a sitting.
Benefits like physical and mental relaxation and clarity, emotional balance, and changes in spiritual outlook combine to change your life in the most positive ways.
Though initially difficult to reach, the Jhanas are a worthy goal for anyone looking to revolutionize the mind within. I can’t think of a more valuable tool for holistic well-being and personal growth!
I do hope you begin or continue your meditative journey. The path is slightly different for everyone. I can help coach you if you need it, just ask.
Introduction to Jhana (Index) >