Your meditation improves correspondingly to the improvement of your mindfulness.

“Your meditation improves correspondingly to the improvement of your mindfulness.”

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Question: With regards to meditation, is it generally true that one should aim to meditate as long as possible, before the kilesas set in? For example, after being able to sit for one hour, should one try to increase it to one and a half hour and then two hours and so on?

Tan Ajahn: The amount of time that you are able to sit depends on the strength of your mindfulness. If you have strong mindfulness, you can sit for a verylong time because you can enter into jhāna very quickly. Once you are in jhāna, it is like you are in a timeless zone. You don’t know the time. You don’t feel anything. You can sit for a long time that way.

But if you haven’t entered jhāna, you will have to experience all kinds of distractions. This can disturb your meditation and you will not be able to sit for long.

So, the important thing is to try to develop strong mindfulness first. Try to develop and maintain mindfulness all day long. Try to stop thinking about things that you don’t need to think about, and then your meditation will improve. Your meditation improves correspondingly to the improvement of your mindfulness.

 “Dhamma for the Asking, Dec 2, 2014”

By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
www.phrasuchart.com

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