Curiosity does what effort can’t. Find something faintly pleasant in your body right now. It might be warmth in your hands, or the chair taking your weight. Don’t try to make it stronger. Just get more interested in it. This often causes the pleasant feeling to grow.

The teaching is the same at our online and in-person retreats – the only difference is the container. In person we build it for you. At home you have to build it yourself, but you get full control (food, environment, etc)

Some meditation teachers often say there is no goal. We disagree. Saying so hides the one goal that matters: learning to spot and release mental tension. We explain why this advice is false but still useful: tinyurl.com/blog-s2-061

Find the softest smile you can, so light it barely counts. Every so often turn it up a notch, then let it grow on its own until you're wearing the biggest grin. If something in you resists, meet that too.

Nir Eyal's "reimagining the trigger" — you don't beat an urge by white-knuckling it, you surf it. Same skill that makes rumination loosen its grip: you stop fighting your own mind and start getting curious about what it's doing.

Most people assume handling hard feelings is a matter of getting tougher. It is closer to the opposite. The more resourced you are, the easier it is to turn toward what you have been avoiding.

Try dropping a mantra like “may all beings be happy” like a pebble into a quiet pond and watch as the ripples fade.

One of my favorite Leigh Brasington analogies: insight practice without jhana is like cutting down a tree with a butter knife. Get the right tool first.

Almost everyone can move their own emotional state a little by taking a walk, getting a hug, working out, etc. What surprises people is that you can train yourself to do this more reliably, more easily, and on a much bigger scale, like generating calm or joy on demand.

The people who struggle most with jhana are usually the ones trying hardest. We set up the conditions, and then the actual skill is for you to let go.

Before your next sit, name one thing you’d do more of if you had the energy for it. Then during the sit, notice how much effort goes into just holding yourself together. That’s where the energy has been going, and it’s the most recoverable part of your day.

Ayya Khema insisted jhana wasn't reserved for monastics — she taught lay people to actually absorb, and that lineage is a big part of why this is accessible at all today. Worth remembering if you think your inconsistent practice disqualifies you. It doesn't.

Being fully present with another person takes courage, because there's usually a low hum of fear underneath and you're bracing against it. In the jhana afterglow, that bracing is already gone. Courage stops meaning gritting your teeth. It just means relaxing into the fear instead of bracing against it.

Why are folks able to make more progress on a retreat than by themselves at home? Meditation is nonverbal and invisible, so practicing alone can mean guessing. What takes weeks to figure out by yourself can take minutes when you have someone with you providing feedback.

Participant from a work-compatible retreat: "I was taking a walk after a sit, grinning like an idiot, and all the stray dogs were running towards me to be petted, then a bird landed on my head. I felt like Snow White." Results may vary. Birds not included.

Negative self-talk gets so habitual that you stop hearing it as talk. It just sounds like the truth about you. Our guide calls missing it one of the most common mistakes new meditators make, because you end up adding tension in the middle of trying to let tension go.

If your practice has lapsed, you don't need to rebuild it today. Just make this next breath a little slower than the last, and notice how the mind slows with it.

We don't teach the jhanas – we teach you how to learn the jhanas. The difference matters because you’ll have to re-learn how to access them when you’re home on a Tuesday and the conditions aren’t right. We want you to know what to do next without us.

Take the situations in your life you’re unhappy with and find the common denominator. It’s you. That might seem depressing, but it’s actually a good thing. It’s the one variable you control, and you can train your nervous system to show up in those situations differently.

Hesychasm's luminous stillness looks a lot like jhana from the inside. Different door, same room.