Do you think all sits should be 90+ mins in order to experience narrowed concentration, the mundane and factors such as pain that are sufficient enough to insight stage journey?

Put another way: How is one supposed to journey through the stages of insight without a long enough sit? 

If you have journeyed the 16 stages of insight in one sit, how long of a sit did it initially take you? 3+ hours?

I propose the duration amount should be studied and the approximate should be told to new meditators so as to set them on a trajectory to build up to a substantial enough duration, whatever it uniquely is. Otherwise, many may be set up to sputter in the dark. Ending their meditation due to time when they should be sitting with strong determination and surrender.

My 2 cents:

-I like the weight training analogy... shorter sits might be more effective for beginners while longer sits might be more effective for more experienced sitters. People can hopefully get some familiarity and experience with shorter sits, then be able to gauge if longer sits are more productive, etc...

-The stages are just approximations and markers; I definitely use the maps to orient myself, but sometimes focusing too much on "Okay I need to push up to this stage" loses some of the core focus of just doing the practice on whatever is happening. That core essence of the practice will carry beginners much deeper into practice. Then there's a kind of gauge of knowing if a sit is too short or too long to be effective.

I do agree with the good habit of deciding on a certain amount of time to do a dedicated sit (or multiple sits) a day, but I think the duration of a sit is somewhat secondary to the quality/effectiveness of using a technique well, and just generally staying mindful when possible, as well as not getting too fixated on the maps to the point it derails practice. I feel like aiming for a certain scientific duration planned for passing through all stages of insight is probably a little too narrow-sighted in comparison to just doing a good job of learning and practicing the techniques and naturally building up awareness of the territory and how to navigate it in terms of time and effort. But again, I'm all for the simple idea of aiming for consistency and generating resolve to get the things done! 

Thanks Mind Over Easy for the reply. Agreed that it shouldn't be an established narrowed standard but approximation is a nice guide. Do you ever use choiceless awareness as a pairing technique for the tail end of a sit or even the majority?

My feeling is generally that it's such an organic and personal realm of practice that it's unhelpful to a certain degree to try to standardize/quantize the process too heavily... Sort of like learning an art, learning an instrument, etc... It's not that I don't appreciate or use the materials that go in that direction; MCTB and these kinds of resources in the pragmatic dharma, as well as maps from older sources, I've found them to be extremely useful! But I just feel like going too far in the direction of theoretical application results in being too preoccupied with maps, too focused on results, when the practice itself and just organically learning to apply and refine the techniques is much more important. 5 minutes spent really noting precisely and applying the technique wholeheartedly is probably way more productive than 30-90 minutes of getting caught up in expectations of "doing it right" or searching for results, confirmation that the technique is working, etc... all that analysis can be done outside of the sit itself. Plus I feel like the starter advice about sitting for brief periods like 15-30 minutes then gauging and expanding is already present in instructions, and sufficient. 

As to your question, it's been a long ride and I've done a lot of different stuff at various points in practice...

Pre- stream entry, I was basically just doing noting exclusively. Sometimes vibrations were super apparent and focus was good, which allowed me to relax the noting and just do more bare noticing of the 3 characteristics (choiceless-awareness esque I suppose; I never explicitly learned a choiceless awareness technique). 

Even post SE though, noting is still super useful especially if I feel like my attention isn't good or sensations aren't clear. It's clearly a super effective technique, but it's also kind of a fallback if I need something concrete to anchor in. Post SE, I feel like awareness of sensations was better and noting was often secondary to just purely paying attention to sensations, looking at things come and go, gently probing for unclear sensations, gently probing for attachment/aversion, etc...

I guess I do have the tools in the toolbox as far as knowing noting, knowing the nanas, recognizing where I'm at and gently adjusting, but I really don't have a strict game-plan in sits... it really depends on where I'm at, what's happening in practice, that kind of thing. Again, it's based on the fact that it's easy to get too results oriented, or be too fixed on technical concepts that there really is a danger of not truly just seeing what's happening right in the moment. All the tools in the toolbox and resources are useful, but it's just the case that none of them are "the thing" itself.

All the concepts and strategies and approaches, in the end, it's all on you to truly see the nature of the sensations that make up experience, including the sensations that make up the thoughts surrounding practice, sensations that make up the desire to progress, the desire to know what's going on, the layers of aversion to seeing more clearly, the layers of attachment... it all has to be met in a balanced way without pushing things away or holding onto things that need to be seen through and gently let go of.

Sorry if that's maybe more than you were asking for, haha. I just wanted to really get my point across of the importance of truly getting your hands dirty, really getting in there and applying the techniques, not being too fixed and rigid with their application, letting it be messy and unclear, letting it all happen in an organic and healthy way. With a a healthy, honest, rigorous, even-keeled but determined approach, I think questions of techniques and methods and optimizations are superseeded by true hands-on experience and wisdom. I am all for finding the most optimized path forward, but my point is just that the trickier part is just truly making the journey and sticking to the path and finding the balance to keep walking and not straying from the core of the path!

Also here's a quote from Chris M on a recent thread, a member with lots of experience (pretty certain he's claimed 4th path)-

"Mediation practice isn't about duration. It's about consistency. Shorter practice periods can be done every day. Just be consistent - develop a habit that's hard to break. I rarely meditated for longer than 30 to 45 minutes at a time, but I did that twice a day, every day, come rain or shine. I'd get up early to do it. I'd stay up a bit later to do it. Whatever was going on outside my practice wasn't worth killing the momentum of consistent practice. And... don't make not being able to practice for hours and hours every day an excuse not to practice."

When I have been on retreats we would mediate until an incense stick burned out - about 40-45 minutes - and then do walking meditation for 5-10 minutes - and then do another sitting session etc. etc. This would go on for hours. It was at a Zen temple.

If you sit too much without getting up you can get blood clots that can move to your lungs and kill you.

Does anyone know if other traditions do it differently?

I've gotten to very deep states with this pattern. When you are practicing alone you can go longer if you reach a new state and don't want to disrupt it or if you think you are on the cusp of a transition.

But, personally, I think you will get more out of developing the habit of practicing in daily life than from long sitting sessions. Sitting will help quiet the mind so you can be mindful in daily life so sitting is still necessary for daily life practice. Dukkha is in daily life, it seems to me that if you want to study dukkha, that would be the place do do it.

In the sutra on the four establishments of mindfulness the Buddha said (paraphrasing) "A monk lives/dwells practicing thus ..." before listing ways to practice in daily life. The implication being that if you are alive, you practice. The Buddha continued his personal practice up to the moment of his death.

Shinzen Young says something like (paraphrasing) when you first start, meditation is part of your life, later on life is something that occurs during meditation.

Thank you for your reply's Jim and Mind over easy. 

I agree that duration should not be turned into some strict right/ritual/absolute. I might be biased based off my own experiences and I wanted to see what others have experienced or recommend for the first path. The Buddha did sit for 12 hours or so to achieve enlightenment from what I read and that is if it was the longest day of the year. No blood clots reported.

I think a zen retreat with meditative walking could keep one in the zone.

I see the insight stages initially like a rock that you push up a hill. If you get up and return to everyday life, the rock rolls back to insight stage 1, 2 or 3. Get over stage 4 and it is like a boulder that you can't control down the other side. After 1st path is a different story. Short meditations are good to build stamina and skill to move the boulder but ultimately there needs to be adequate duration of strong determination.

With the pursuit of the first path, Do you feel that an attained early (1-3) insight stage has staying power to be carried over to a meditative session on the back half of the day or the next day? I think on retreat it does but otherwise you have to walk the boulder back up the hill again, although maybe with more ease.

How many practice runs before the right effort?

In my experience, the amount of time you need to meditate to get back to where you were at the end of the previous session depends on what you do between sessions. If you go to work or school and get stressed and your mind becomes turbulent, it could take a long time. If you spend the day quietly being midful maybe continuing to note in daily life, it could take a lot less time. If you just spent five or ten minutes doing walking meditation it could take just a few minutes.

It seems like over time the neronal pathways get reinforced (as with any other type of learning) and you can reach deeper stages faster the more you practice.

So how long you need to sit will depend on what you are doing between sits. That's one reason I think you would benefit a lot from developing the habit of practicing in daily life.

"I see the insight stages initially like a rock that you push up a hill."

It might seem that way but I don't think it is actually what's happening. Insight has to be gained into the stages. Without knowledge of them you can experience nanas, but to truly progress one needs to gain insight. (I've seen @adivader say this a number of times and it's a great point.) 

There is no progress without insight. It has to be arrived at within an individuals practice. The process is personal and really can't be codified, commodified or institutionalized. 

Personally:
I have made progress through the stages doing thirty minutes a day.
I have made progress through the stages doing eight hours a day. 
("a day" is what's most important here)

Whether I choose to do one or the other is based on many life factors(work, responsibilities, etc) but one of them is an intuitive understanding of what I need as a person in that moment to progress. 

In my experience the tools one uses to develop insight and the ability for those tools to evolve and adapt to the stages are basically always an important factor. And as people remind me often. Fundamentals are key.
 

Thanks John and Bahia Baby for the ideas. I definitely don't do long sits daily and actually only did the 3+ once off retreat. After that the most I do is 2 but often just 1hour. I am speaking to more the pursuit of first path. I agree that it needs to be integrated and not just an on cushion thing.

I agree that it is done for the insights and that once an insight is understood, it can be more easily renavigated. My point is that a pre-path meditator might spend their 30 to 60 minutes rewalking this trail. That beyond 60 minutes you start to experience the discomfort that drives aversion and desire. This is then used to develop new neuro-responses and wiring that allows for equanimity/neutrality to be the default response even to immense pain among other things. Once predominate enough, arising and passing happens. 

In the boulder analogy, I am not saying that you don't know the boulder, even with wisdom. Instead, you might have to retrace your steps, jhana development, and insight knowledge each time you meditate.

I am definitely of the opinion that small bites of meditation should first be developed as well as integrating it into the everyday. I am more speaking to the moment you choose to pursue the 16 stages of insight in one sit, even if three have been walked/known.

My experience of starting, developing, and maturing a meditation practice was far less like the Myth of Sisyphus (pushing a large boulder up a hill) than it was like learning to play an instrument. Insights build on insights. Pace and consistency are essential. We most often want to take big gulps of new stuff and think that will speed us on the way. It's probably counter-productive. We can choke, get overwhelmed, tired, frustrated, and just quit. This effort, our practice, is about changing our fundamental relationships with the world and with ourselves. It is, by definition, something that requires time. Lots of time. You can't hurry love, and you can't hurry waking up.

 "My point is that a pre-path meditator might spend their 30 to 60 minutes rewalking this trail."

My point is that any meditator will rewalk countless trails. There's no avoiding it. 

Said another way and perhaps more accurately: No trail can be rewalked, every insight is into this moment. The object of practice is always right now. Always what's showing up right here. You really can't gamify that.

"I am more speaking to the moment you choose to pursue the 16 stages of insight in one sit, even if three have been walked/known."
Is this something you're trying to do or think people should do? For a pre-stream entry meditator I'm not sure I would recommend that. I would not put the focus there. The main danger of these maps is gamifying practice, they are very useful but "sit down and meditate through a whole path" seems like weird advice to give someone pre-stream entry. 

If one meditates everyday one tends to accumulate insight and generally progress through the stages. With some ups and downs as is needed or required for one's own unwinding. Worth adding, paths can be very different person to person. 
 

Thank Chris and Bahia Baby for your responses. I can appreciate both of your points of view.

Each should choose their own path and pursuit, so I am not attempting to say everyone should do the same. I am bringing forward examples of the buddha, from recollection, to show counter points though. If I recall correctly, the buddha used to travel around to give dharma talks of which some would reportedly become enlightened during meditation or at a rapid pace. If that is true, it would seem the Buddha was more of a proponent of fast pursuit if possible.

In a Goenka course, the first 3 hours of each day you would consistently sit. This was for all 10 days if I recall correctly. Outside of the initial sit, they had various durations of 2hrs. Significant results are made through such efforts because of the time allotted to path into new territories. That is all I am suggesting. Never forcing, allowing but with enough time. What do you think of the Buddha sitting ~12 for his first path? If he chose to sit for such a long duration, would he not be aligned with such a proposal of long duration sits for the final push?

I like the instrument analogy and am not so attached to my own. I think I am not trying to reference the Myth of Sisyphus but instead make a new boulder analogy. In this one it is not a punishment for trickery but one that is attainable if you put in enough consistent effort and time (coupled with the 8 fold path and 3 characteristics).

I think we are talking about the same progression initially but I am suggesting to give ample time to a sit for the pursuit of enlightenment when ready and that is your goal. As the Buddha reportedly did. 

I feel like I see where you're coming from, so there's something that might be worth discussing-

I'm not sure if you've read MCTB or browsed around the forums/pragmatic dharma spheres, but something worth pointing out is that those practicing and studying MCTB and hanging out in the prag dharma sphere often don't treat the pali canon/theravada teachings as absolute truth... generally I think a lot of folks around here, especially those who report progress in terms of attainments and such, definitely respect the core teachings and find tons of practical value! But a lot of the pragmatic dharma spirit is based in not what is absolute/sacred truth, but how the practice and it's various states/stages/attainments actually perform, what the practices actually seem to do, and how to get the best results. 

I know some (even advanced) practitioners will lean more heavily into treating pali canon/theravada more literally, treating the teachings therein as the ultimate resource, which I'm not necessarily knocking. But I think in terms of the modern day work of "getting it done", working towards and understanding attainments and how they perform, generally there's a spirit of acknowledging what resources serve the task of getting things done, while still being skeptical and even in disagreement with parts of the bodies of those works, even if they come from the capital B Buddha himself

Besides just the pragmatic and practical side of seeing what actually works and what it looks like, there's a whole area of debate and discussion around what is meant literally and what is hyperbole, what is intended to be taken literally vs what is more poetic and metaphorical, and discussions around how historical evidence is sometimes at odds with the classical depictions and stories/teachings of the Buddha, etc... 

Mind over easy makes a great point here. 

I'll change my tact. 

Do you personally know anyone who attained enlightenment? Whose attainment you can verify through community, phenomenology, action and quality of dharma teaching? Can you verify what they are calling awakening is truly Arahatship?

Do you know of an awakened teacher whose students routinely become awakened? if so how do they arrive at awakening? What practices do they use? What duration sits and so on? 

(I have answered these questions for myself. That's why I'm here.)

Do you think what you're asking about is possible for you personally? Why not try it out and report back? Why not test the hypothesis and write up some detailed practice logs along the way? We love that sort of stuff and would happily chime in if you had any questions. 

There has been a lot of talk on this forum about how living people attained 4th path. It is a tremendously useful resource for that reason, not to mention, some of those people hang out here and give dharma advice. 

Thank you Mind Over Easy and Bahiya Baby for the replies.

I can appreciate taking the pali cannon with a dose of skeptism and I am no monk. I feel I am a part of the pragmatic community and welcome debate. I also welcome that maybe both can be correct or it can be dependent on the practitioner. One may or may not take longer than the other.

I have already tried it years ago with results and that is why I am proposing it. I am not into completing a historical log or doing some vetting of credentials. So you have to live with that unknown. I am okay with disbelief if that is where you want to steer it Bahia Baby. 

What I am hopeful for is to see about people's experiences and propose ideas for discussion and consideration.

I haven't vetted my "teachers" yet but they include the Buddha, Goenka and Daniel Ingram. Do you think they are Arhats?

So I may benefit from your research, what awakened teachers have you found?

Damn, Chris, now I am going to go through the day singing, You can't hurry bodhi, no you just have to wait, waking up don't come easy, ...

"I am okay with disbelief if that is where you want to steer it Bahia Baby"
No not all, I'm sorry if I gave you that impression. I'm trying to understand exactly what you're asking on a very practical and pragmatic level. I was trying to determine whether this was about your practice, someone elses practice or the practice of some teacher, organisation or tradition. It wasn't entirely clear to me.  

"I think we are talking about the same progression initially but I am suggesting to give ample time to a sit for the pursuit of enlightenment when ready and that is your goal. As the Buddha reportedly did."

"when ready and that is your goal"
So you mean, like after some person has become an Anagami? Or you mean anyone who has literally done it exactly like the Buddha has claimed to do it?

Has anyone around here done that I wonder?

--

"I have already tried it years ago with results and that is why I am proposing it. I am not into completing a historical log..."
We really like talking about practice here. Understand if you don't want to commit to a write up. But if you have attained that we'd love to hear about it and would be super useful for the DhO database. 

Just suggesting, if anyone wants to give it a try. What is the harm if you have the time. Sit with the allotted time of 4 hours and see what happens or just do 90minutes. Alternatively keep doing 30minutes and do some early jhana push ups. I think of the insight stages as a marathon of which needs adequate time but also practice. When ready, join the marathon sit of unknown duration, stillness and surrender.

"I think of the insight stages as a marathon of which needs adequate time but also practice. When ready, join the marathon sit of unknown duration, stillness and surrender."

I don't think that longer/marathon sits are categorically bad by any means; I've had some longer sits when it seemed appropriate. But I don't know if I would agree with this. Like some others here are reporting, my own progress in terms of results (1st and 2nd path to the best of my understanding and conversations with others), has always been in the context of mostly doing 1 or 2 dedicated sits in a day, usually never longer than an hour. The key has been to optimize for where I'm at, to keep a consistent daily routine, and to do my best to maintain mindfulness and inquiry while outside of sits. 

I have relied on the maps of the progress of insight heavily, but I have learned over the years to not treat the progress of insight as just a bunch of obstacles to marathon through to get to the prize at the finish line. Cycling through the stages can happen all the time, outside of dedicated sits, outside of any intentions to meditate or be mindful. Currently I see the stages of insight more as different lenses, different mind states which reveal layers of attachment and aversion. I don't think it's about just zooming through them or optimizing to "get past them" to the path moment. Endlessly cycling up and down is much less important to me than gaining even a little bit of a clearer insight into the nature of awareness and sensations. From my perspective, the whole point is the practice of examining the 3 characteristics in whatever comes up, gently weeding out attachment and aversion, and simply seeing the truth of experience where it's at. The nature of sensations and whatever truths there are, are always there, always available to be seen, not dependent on cycling through states and stages!

With how helpful the maps truly are, it's ironic because within the conceptualization of the maps and how we and our practice/progress relates, they often become blocks to further progress (I'll get it once I get further along the maps, I'll see reality for what it is at some further stage, I'm in an earlier stage so I can't "do it" or "get it done" now, etc...). I'm not at all trying to put words in your mouth or assume I know your perspective though! I know very little of your background, perspective, practice, and I wouldn't want to assume anything. But that's also why it can be so helpful to candidly share your own practice experience, your best understanding of where you're at, what you may have attained, how it played out in your own practice. In the spirit of science/pragmatism/more data out in the open, it truly has helped me to candidly share my own experiences and be able to talk with others who do the same, who have gone further and attained to more than I have, to get guidance, and out in the open discussions about exactly what practice and results have looked like for other people.

And wrapping back to your original inquiry about duration of sits in terms of making it through all 16 stages (I am assuming you mean obtaining 1st path), others and myself have reported what we did to get there and how it looked in terms of time and effort, to the general theme of it not being such a marathon of a sit. What compels your train of thought about these longer sits? Do you have criticisms of the general feedback and reports that might be at odds with what you're proposing? Did you or others you're aware of have an experience of getting through the stages of insight and attaining path after a long sit? Regardless of my opinions or experience, I'm honestly just curious and would love to know where you're coming from and what you've seen, inasmuch as you'd like to share! Without knowing some of that stuff, I admit that your recommendations and intentions remain slightly obscure to me. But there's nothing wrong with that! Generally speaking I think most people are very comfortable talking about attainments, self-diagnosis, general experiences with practice, etc... it's what helps us all grow and learn, and all the little data points help provide a really nice picture for what "doing all this stuff" looks like, all out in the open, in the modern day!

Once a meditator gets past a certain point, often called the "A&P" event around these parts, the process proceeds on its own. We can foster it along and make the environment it occupies (the mind) more favorable, but we can't really control it. (We don't really control anything anyway, but that's a story for another time.) Formal meditation creates a favorable environment, but much of what is happening is done while we go about our daily routine or while sleeping. It's below the level of consciousness, as is the vast majority of what we humans "do" in our heads.

"Currently I see the stages of insight more as different lenses, different mind states which reveal layers of attachment and aversion."

Nice.    

I agree with all three of you. I am speaking to the first path and the threshold that is arising and passing (then the rock rolls on its own). Saying long unconstrained duration sits are an option (what is a marathon anyways) but not a must. One definition I have found is "A contest of endurance." It seems you are not shut off to such an idea but more of a proponent of regular practice which I agree with but incorporate what I propose. I posted such an idea because it is my experience and wanted to see others ideas about it. It wasn't some 16 stage obsession, or force, which I think is a misinterpretation of what I am saying. It simply is what arose. I'll look into some formal log at some future date but the quick of it is classical natural progression with Kindalini at the AP and the most fear can fathom with no formation just dissolution. Same with most intense disgust, desire for it all to be over and a pretty substantial reobservation. Fortunate to not have any formations. I just sat through it instead of getting up. This all happened at around the three hour mark. This was facilitated without expectation of next stage, steering or force. This is all years ago. So there you go, one categorized for that it can have effect.