Q & A: Is It Better To Meditate Longer Or More Often?

[With English interpretation] Ven. Pomnyun Sunim's (법륜스님) Answer to "Is it better to meditate longer or more often?"
A question chosen from the weekly Sunday meditation with Ven. Pomnyun Sunim(법륜스님).

Peace of mind is only one step away.

Transcript

Is it better to meditate once per day for 30 minutes,

Twice per day for 20 minutes,

Or three times per day for 15 minutes?

You can't really focus on the efficiency or effectiveness of meditation when you do meditation.

So obviously when you're working,

You're kind of performance-oriented.

But you can't be performance-oriented when you're in practice.

So if you are able to focus on yourself,

The longer you're able to do that,

The better.

However,

If you're not practiced meditator and you can't really focus on yourself for a long time,

If you try to do it too long,

It becomes a source of pain and suffering.

So it's not good.

However,

To a shorter time meditation is maybe a pause,

But it does not allow you to go into the depth of meditation.

So I think ideal for you is to do it for 30 minutes,

Maybe rest and strain your legs,

Shake it out for about 5 to 10 minutes,

Then follow up with another 30 to 40 minute session if that's available to you.

If you don't have that availability,

Just go ahead straight for 30,

40 minutes at least once.

But even if that's tough for you in terms of availability,

Try to do whatever that's available to you,

15,

20 minutes.

So what I'm saying is that if you can make time available,

30,

40 minutes at one sitting is preferable.

But if you don't have that time,

Then even shorter time at multiple periods of a day is good.

Reviews

Thank you! I've been wondering about this