The use of shorter sits - a question for Kenneth.

Hi, Kenneth!
I appreciate your sharing your knowledge about meditation, and I wanted to ask a question I think could be interesting for others who are in a similar situation as I am.
I know you have lots to do, so I only hope you have the time to answer
(anyone else is free to chip in)

On this site momentum is often mentioned, and very recently you wrote an analogy to making fire with sticks. One needs to continue past the point where the sticks get warm.
I understand this, and it makes sense for meditation. The time spent is vital.

I would like to ask about this in comparison to one thing you mentioned earlier (I am not sure I remember verbatim), namely that all time spent noting (long or short) does irreparable damage to the ego.

What I wonder (having restricted amounts of time available) is whether this could not be translated to the drop of water slowly making its way through a rock?
Even 10 minute sits daily for a very loooooong time will ultimately bring "progress", whatever that is?

I understand that 120 1-minute sessions probably are less effective than for instance 2 60-minute ones.
But to cook it down to one question: is there any utility in just sitting for 10-20 minutes those days that this is what is possible? (can this ultimately give some benefit?)
Thanks!

I'm going to chip in... (almost to remind myself of these things)

My model for progress is like that for stretching, i.e. physical releasing and lengthening of tight muscles.

Some people are more flexible, or the live in a warm climate, or they are younger, or just more aware of their body... so all you can do is generalize. Here's my generalization:

You don't stretch, you not only don't get looser, you get tighter. (no sitting, isn't no progress -- it's falling back)
You need an initial warm up, otherwise nothing moves. (20 minutes of warm up in sitting)
You need a period of regaining old range of movement (20 minutes of sitting, usually spent at your center-of gravity nanas)
You need a period of exploring your furthers range of movement, you need to be warm and aware, and be very gentle while exploring (20 minutes of gentle fine tuning, cutting edge of one's practice)

You can "get warmed up" before even sitting by: walking meditation, off the cushion noting, counting breaths, mindfulness of eating/bathing/brushing teeth/dressing.

You can also "stay warmed up" by adding in all of the above throughout the day.

So maybe when you sit for 20 minutes only, if already warmed up, you might be able to do some work on the center of gravity nana, but not make much progress on your cutting edge.

Two sits a day, with "staying warm" in between, seems to be what it takes on average to make the kind of progress that I am jealous about when I read these journals.

I can still make some progress on just one long sit at night, if I am very seriously diligent about "keeping warm" throughout the day --- but I'm going much slower than others because of it.

Here's the last bit of this "mediation as stretching" model:

When someone is already flexible, they don't need any warm up and if you watch them closely, they are finding ways of "staying warm and stretched out" all during the day. These are the folks that can just do the splits cold.

The meditation equivalent are those that a flying through later paths. Maybe these folks can make progress off the cushion or in 20 minute bursts, but that isn't relevant to my beginnerish practice. If I just relied on trying to see emptiness through the day or only do walking meditation... I just wouldn't make progress. The results would be like me trying to do the splits right now. Can't be done due to my lack of flexibility.

Hmm... so that's my chiming in, hope it helps (including myself).

Most of my sits have been a half hour or less.

Mumuwu, considering that a lot of people sit fairly longer, maybe even more often, than that on average -- looking back on it, do you have any idea what it is about your practice that has been relatively very effective? Thanks, k.

I think having the practice in mind every waking hour of the day helps as well. On some level I was always practicing, Always looking at how the mind was perceiving and acting. Of course depending on where I was at I did sit for longer than that.

Right, how could you fail if you can do that. Thanks for answering. Not trying to put you on the spot, just to learn from your example. If you don't mind going a little further with this, were you able to keep that up while working? You worked in I.T. right? Did you find that pretty conceptually engaging if not demanding?

I had a lot of time where I'd be doing a repetitive task or where I could work without thinking verbally. I spent a lot of time doing witnessing or something like that. Yeah my job was pretty conducive to the practice - often not very demanding cognitively (mostly keeping things running for office workers). Keeping mindful of what's going on in the body, especially in terms of tension, vibration, pulsing, etc. really seems to help (e.g. noting until more subtle things come up and then keeping one eye on that subtlety and letting it develop while doing other things)

Thanks for sharing that!

The whole point of doing what we're doing is to eventually apply it to our daily lives, right? Why practice something that has no use in my daily life?

Why should I wait until Stream Entry, N'th Path, Arhatship, or whatever before practicing in daily life?

I work towards this by using "down time" whenever I can. Noting while waiting at the doctor's office, noting while walking down the hall at work, mindful while mowing the lawn, noting while taking a shower, etc...

The biggest thing I do to maintain my momentum is to note while driving. I'm lucky in that I have a half-hour freeway commute to and from work. I note for a few minutes with my eyes closed to help get focused, and then note from the second I turn the key to when I park and turn off the car. During weeks where I don't go anywhere else, this adds FIVE EXTRA HOURS of practice time. If I have weekend driving to do, or have to go back into the city, I've had weeks where it's added TEN EXTRA HOURS of practice time.

Early this year, I did a 1400 mile drive, and noted for over 14 hours of it. The day after I got back, I had the most wildly spectacular A&P passage ever*.



Now, who can't use five bonus hours of practice time every week?

---

* Bliss, visual fireworks, vibration the likes of which I'd never felt before or since, chills, raptures, chilled out coolness, man oh man it was something. See www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discu...ards/message/1601155 for the gory details.

"But to cook it down to one question: is there any utility in just sitting for 10-20 minutes those days that this is what is possible? (can this ultimately give some benefit?)" -meekan

Hi Meekan,

Short answer: If what you are doing is working, keep doing it. If not, do something else.

Notice that Betawave and Mumuwu gave seemingly contradictory answers to the same question. They are both right because they are both successful yogis. You will have to find what works for you. If shorter sits are not bringing you the progress you seek, sit longer. And I would most definitely follow Mu's advice to remain attentive to your experience throughout the day; restricting your practice to your formal sitting times will result in slow progress even if you are able to sit a couple of hours a day. It's essential to take advantage of every waking moment as a moment to be awake.

You can get this. Keep it up,

Kenneth

"Why should I wait until Stream Entry, N'th Path, Arhatship, or whatever before practicing in daily life?"
-- Andy

"And I would most definitely follow Mu's advice to remain attentive to your experience throughout the day; restricting your practice to your formal sitting times will result in slow progress even if you are able to sit a couple of hours a day."
-- Kenneth

Reading this thread I've seen the topic 'jealous about others' attainments' pop up. Something I've felt clearly myself more than I'd like. I guess we all have different lives (job, family situation, ambition, talent, genetics ...) and have to find our own unique ways to practice in/with them.

" I guess we all have different lives (job, family situation, ambition, talent, genetics ...) and have to find our own unique ways to practice in/with them. - Omni"

I agree.
I also think that a useful concept here is that the current way the mind works is like a car running at full speed down the road, so it takes quite a bit of momentum to get it not only to stop , but perhaps to even go the other way, so just tapping the breaks once in a while wont work.

Some people seem to progress quite fast with what would seem, by comparsion to others, not much work, but most people I've talked to, who had gone the directions I'd like to go, had put much effort into it, and those who had to put very little effort or time seem to be a minority, IMO.

Perhaps Mu was a monk meditating all day in his cave last lifetime, and left the good stuff for this life. Ha ha

Kenneth and others:

I'd like some more clarity about what practicing during the day really means - spelt out in idiot's terms. I am currently putting huge effort into my sitting practice (with all but four of the past 50 days with at least two hours meditation), but I rarely carry it out into daily life. I mean, sometimes I'll find myself noting - and while on retreat I noted while walking around, opening doors, eating etc in a fairly intense way - but I don't really make an effort to do so.

Part of this is aversion (a desire "just to get on with life") and part of this is because I don't really know what it looks like. Ron recently wrote a great description of what noting while sitting looks like:
alohadharma.wordpress.com/how-to-meditate/ << Read the bit with the dog!
Which is exactly what I do. I'd now like someone to do the same for what noting during the day looks like, bearing in mind that I'm mostly trying to do things at normal speed!

Thanks yogis,
Andy

"You will have to find what works for you. "

I've been all over the map in terms of hours practiced a day. I wrote above sounds very cut and dry. I've definitely "over" practiced as well as underpracticed, with all of the detriment of either. Not a perfect yogi, for sure.

Mumuwu seems to be the perfect example of someone who can stay mindful/present during the day and hit the cushion with no need for "warming up". His 30 minutes gets him to his cutting edge and beyond.

I've had spells like that where I was very "initimate" with the world, for lack of a better expression, and each sit rocketted me forward. Short sits were enough and I could feel it. So I worked with that flavor for a while.

But I've also gone through phases where I'm just in my head all day and I forget how simple and direct the practice is... and it takes me a solid 20 or 30 minutes just to drop my crap and get in the zone. My job is very cognitive and full of human interactions and unnecessary drama. That first 20 minutes is like off-gassing all the drama of the day and I need to to that before I can get into practice. So usually, I'm in this kind of situation.

There is also the no practice situation. Sometimes it's important to wake up early or stay up late and just go for a walk in the near dark and feel that openness instead of getting stale on a cushion. But the best thing with that is to quickly reconnect that kind of open experience and link it to sitting on the cushion soon afterwards.

The best is when all of this feedbacks on itself, momentum like Yadid said.

For what it's worth, practicing off the cushion for me means being interested in sensations and thoughts, AS sensations and AS thoughts, thoughout the day. Eventually it can become more direct and it feels like being/giving space for the world to do it's thing -- or even intimacy with the moment.

My life is pretty simple. I don't have kids or many responsibilities outside of work. That has it's downside as well.

"That has it's downside as well."

Is it the "life is so simple, everything feels very unreal" downside? Like driving a car in plenty of space to spin out, no clear lanes on the road? That was my experience during my years of simple life. Now I'm in the middle of rush hour traffic with too much spinning out all around me and I need to remember that doesn't me &gt;I&lt; am spinning out.

More so that everyone my age seems to have their own house, kids, etc. It's great in terms of freedom, but people tend to think there's something wrong with it.

I met Lama Surya Das a couple of years ago and, knowing that he'd been
on 3 three year retreats, got started on my favorite complaint
about being frustrated in my efforts to fanangle retreats. But I was
stopped in my tracks when obvious pain came into his eyes and he
said "I never got to have a family". I guess I assumed that being
enlightened he didn't have to worry about personal sacrifices, but
all those years on retreat accumulating nieces and nephews... I get
a missing my family attack on a one week retreat.

One way I can hold my own with any yogi here is the number of other yogis
I've felt envious of or competitive with. But that's so embarrassing, I
always try to cover that way over on KFD. At this point I was just
thinking, the people who have really done this, who can make 30 mins
really count, what can I learn from that, who can't produce much out
of 2 hours. Seems like the evidence though tends to boil down to that
they just did what needed to be done. There's no end to useful tips
but never a silver bullet in what someone else says.

Great answer Kenneth - I find myself constantly wanting to ask other people what the best way to do something is, when the real answer is only going to be found in my own experience. Thats what led me here in the first place - what I was doing wasn't working for me.

I have also found that shorter sits don't do very much for me - although it seems to depend on what I am doing and how strong my mind is at the moment. One thing I find is that tweaking practice for me every so often seems to help keep me from becoming 'mechanical' and dry with something - i.e. noting stuff but not really hitting it with awareness...

Everyone, it's been a nice discussion!
Hope people benefited!

It seems as it is up to everyone to tweak what works for them, and the parameter to adjust is time in formal sitting, and time in informal meditation (perhaps harder to measure).

For myself, I reckon that if I don't find a way to get more warmed up in life off the cushion, the amount of time I have to sit formally may not be enough (enough for what is of course the question, since many people report benefits from meditation not necessarily correlated to fitting the map model to their experience).
I.e. I am doomed!

However, I never really understood one thing. If it is true that every little "note" does irreparable damage to the ego (is it irreparable), the turtle of turtles should perhaps destroy the ego eventually?

Or does the ego have the healing powers of wolverine? I.e. you make a small crack in it and it quickly repairs, hence the momentum idea?

In that case noting is really useless as an ego destroyer until you are really "warm". I.e. as many of you have described it.
Perhaps like the analogy of pushing a car on a flat surface. A little push here and there won't move it, but if you apply constant force and overcome the initial friction, it starts rolling...

So maybe this is why I'll have to stay on as the resident chronic yogi over here

"So maybe this is why I'll have to stay on as the resident chronic yogi over here
"

I'll keep you company

Actually with the mind-boggling success rate here, if we keep at it there's still a lot of hope. Maybe it will take 5 years for things to fall in place, that's still a d--n good deal!
I'm sure it won't take you that long!

"I'll keep you company
"

That's what you say, before leaving me behind in a cloud of dust!

No seriously, your persistence sure is inspiring!
But maybe we shoudn't fret too much about reaching there, if these spiritual efforts can be translated to this :
www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?i...shrink-part-of-brain

(edit: typo)

me three. Persistence yes - fall down, get back up.

"self doubt, resignation thoughts, feeling, hearing" "obsessing about progress, worrying, analyzing, hearing, contraction"