In previous videos,
I've mentioned the 40 minute mark as a kind of milestone,
Beyond which some interesting things can start to happen in meditation.
And in this video,
I want to cover that in a little more detail.
So in general,
When you think about how long to meditate,
There is no set in stone right answer.
It's not about effort.
If anything,
It's about the opposite of effort,
Right?
Because you want to flex and train the use of your non-thinking mind.
And it's also not a contest,
Right?
It's not a marathon to see how long you can go versus anybody else.
And in training,
We start at five minutes,
And we work ourselves slowly up to the 15 or 20 minute mark.
And that is just fine.
You can stay at that 15 to 20 minute mark forever and have a great life with meditation wonderfully integrated into everything.
So then,
When we talk about the intensive pleasure of meditation,
After you get past monkey mind and basically tip dunk headlong into the ocean of bliss,
That point,
Of course,
Is also a kind of milestone for us.
And in my experience,
To get a line in the water,
As it were,
To set the stage for the ocean of bliss experience,
The minimum session time you want to shoot for is around 40 minutes.
Now,
You want to work up to it gradually,
Of course,
Over the course of a couple months.
And there is no rush,
No urgency.
But at around the 40 minute mark,
The monkey mind has had a full range of motion,
A full window of opportunity to get you to stop meditating.
And in a separate video,
I actually outline nine different levels of distraction and escalation that monkey mind will go through to get you to stop meditating.
And often monkey mind will go through a majority of those nine levels if you run it out all the way to 40 or 45 minutes.
So by the 45 minute mark,
It'll start to tire out a little or it'll just get bored with you.
And 40 minutes is also interesting because it's hard to fake it or brute force it for that long,
Especially on your own.
Now,
If you're meditating in a group,
It's different.
Because when you're in a group setting,
Just peer pressure,
You know,
Fear of embarrassment or just common courtesy will keep your rear end in your seat for 40 minutes or longer.
But if you sit on your own,
Alone for 40 minutes,
With nothing holding you down and full freedom to get up anytime with no one watching and no negative consequences,
To do that,
You typically have had to find by then some kind of truce or equilibrium with your monkey mind,
At least for that session.
And it is at that point that some very interesting things start to happen in meditation.
Monkey mind will just get bored and just,
You know,
Throw up its hands and just leave the room.
It'll be like,
Oh,
This is boring,
You know,
I am out of here.
And the thing is,
When it leaves,
It doesn't tell you,
It just vaporizes and disappears.
And once that starts happening,
You start to get higher rates of,
You know,
When you're just drifting along,
And then suddenly dropping headlong into the ocean of bliss.
So the general milestone for you to get into this phase of things that I've just described is about 40 minutes.
Now the thing is,
Between minute zero and minute 40,
It's still pleasurable,
It's relaxing,
It's rejuvenating as long as you're not exerting too much effort or trying too hard.
And you can still hit the ocean of bliss at minute three,
More typically after you've been doing it for a while.
Right,
But minute 40 is just a good solid basic milestone to keep in mind.
And in the ideal situation,
You're going to want to train with the techniques and schedules we give you in the next levels of Preside to systematically find the five to six core go to techniques that are personally to you the most effective in allowing you to drift out to minute 40 in a fun and effortless manner,
Right?
So that it goes by and feels like it was just five minutes,
And that you're actually totally bummed to actually have to come back out at the end of it.
So that's a little info on the magic of minute 40.
I hope you found this helpful.
And please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.
