What to make of Jhanas as explained in the pragmatic dharma movement? In this set of videos two experts (Kenneth Folk and Nick Halay) go through the 13(?) jhanas 

Several aspects of this video make me wonder - primarily, I find it curious that they can speak and move their limbs while being in a jhana. I notice Nick instinctively wipes his nose at 7:18, and rubs his eye a little later, all while supposedly in the third and fourth jhanas! 

Can others with jhana experience or with experience in the pragmatic dhamma movement comment, and help me understand? What am I seeing here?

Are they really speaking of the same jhanas that we commonly understand from the teachings?
Unfortunately, the canonical definition for jhanas is too vague.


  Quite secluded from sense pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states of mind, he enters and dwells in the first jhana, which is accompanied by applied thought and sustained thought with rapture and happiness born of seclusion. (M.i,1818; Vbh.245)


Restricting only to the first jhana and Considering only the above, one could gloss over the seclusion part and interpret applied/sustained thought, rapture and happiness in any convenient way.

Probably the most superficial understanding would further conflate rapture and happiness as just some pleasant feeling, and regard applied and sustained thought as a very ordinary kind of concentration (e.g the one required to read or observe and describe something). Naturally, this would make jhana a very ordinary experience.

Richard sankman wrote a book about jhanas ("the experienxe of samadhi") where half of it is devoted to interviewing monks and lay teachers on how they interpret many of those things. Though some do not set the bar much higher, it seems none of them had such a loose understanding of jhana.

In a more traditional interpretation, the bar is higher (and jhana is nothing ordinary): the factors are more delineated, better identified and it takes a lot of practice to develop them -- like building the trust of an extremely scared animal. Even access concentration which precedes the first jhana requires some hard work. 

But even here there are some disagreements (e.g. Can one hear sounds while absorbed?)

In any case, In this stronger interpretation, While it may take little time for a seasoned yogi to be absorbed (depending on how strong the factors are), i think the gross movements and speech are quite incompatible with this state. Thus, they might be telling a different story.

In my experience, the depth of tranquility and concentration before the first jhana makes it quite challenging to articulate long discursive thoughts without causing disruption -- e.g. the mere lookup for analogies to describe something would weaken the concentration significantly, as the focus moves away from the meditation object. Let alone speak such descriptions during the absorption, specially when we feel very disinclined to say a word or make disruptive movements as we progress towards it (say, when we are so focused that it requires significant effort to use any mental faculty that was already put to rest or to drive the mind away from the object of meditation).