How many hours should we meditate every day in order to get some taste of jhāna?

Question:  How many hours should we meditate every day in order to get some taste of jhāna?

Than Ajahn:  First, you have to develop mindfulness all the time before you can meditate successfully. You can do it from the time you get up to the time you go to sleep by reciting a mantra or by focusing on your body activities. Keep your mind on the mantra or on the body activities. Don’t let the mind think about other things, except for the things that you really need to think about.

Once you have continuous mindfulness, you can sit down and maybe in a few minutes, your mind can enter jhāna. So, the key is to develop mindfulness first before you meditate. Without mindfulness, no matter how many hours you meditate, you will not get any result.

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Question:  Is meditation the only way to nibbāna?

Than Ajahn: Meditation is part of the way. You need the 3 practices: keeping the precepts, doing meditation, and developing wisdom. And eventually, they will get you to nibbāna. You need to develop these 3 practices by studying and keeping the 5 precepts, then the 8 precepts, and more precepts if you become a monk or a nun. Then, you have to meditate to concentrate your mind into calm and peace. After that, when you come out of meditation, you have to develop insight or wisdom by teaching the mind to see that everything that you are involved with is impermanent, causing suffering and no self.

Then, you will be able to get to nibbāna that way

Dhamma in English, Aug 15, 2020.

By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
www.phrasuchart.com

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