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JoJo Prime's avatar

Can jhānas help me to become more dutiful? Quite frequently in my life I encounter choice between things that I must do and competing things that feel good and sometimes I cave in. Like maybe if I understood on emotional level that I don't actually value pleasure so much I would easier time following my duties. How about this?

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Mark Koslow's avatar

I recently learned about a paradox of the jhānas, which seems relevant here. Basically, that the jhānas are a series of progressively more attenuated states of consciousness, so each stage feels better and better because you’re holding onto less and less. But the paradox is that, as you progress through the stages, there’s also less of you to feel those better feelings. You become "thinned out" in a sense. Perhaps that could be related to why people tend to lose interest in them?

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