Hi everybody, thanks for the amazing content on this forum already, it's been incredibly helpful. I now feel like I need to ask for some personal help though so here goes:

I have been meditating on and off for about 2 years. Started taking my practice seriously about 8 months ago. And even more so last 2-3 months. I have plans to take the rest of year off to work on this and do plenty of retreats with my first one coming up in a month. I keep reading everywhere that at one point you start to just want to sit and it becomes effortless but I have a lot of difficulty with this.

I have had many amazing experiences, am pretty confident I have reached 1st jhana once and get what I believe is very close pretty often. Even when my meditations aren't special, I generally feel relaxed and happy during them and especially afterwards even with a lot of the "unpleasant" sessions if I sit all the way to the end. I spend a lot of time trying to really be aware of how peaceful and happy I feel when I am mindful to encourage my brain to seek this feeling more often. I have had problems with sitting as soon as my meditations get bad, but the main problem I think I have to face now is how I never ever stop looking forward to my meditations finishing no matter how good they get. I do mostly samatha because I feel I still need to improve my concentration but do some metta and insight as well. The longest sits I have done were 60 minutes. On average these days I do 1-2 hours a day(average sit probably 30 minutes) with the most I have ever done probably 3-4 hours plus some walking meditation as well.

I've noticed that anytime I am close to jhana, feel anything out of the ordinary or just feel really good I immediately start thinking about how much time is left, when will this end even though I am truly happy and really want to achieve higher states and be more peaceful in general... I have tried non timed meditations but I can barely go through 5-10 minutes without my mind running wild. I often, even when close to the peek of my pleasure whilst sitting (but also during worse sessions), just find myself opening my eyes or geting up without even having time to know how this happened. I have tried a couple strategies like trying to get myself to just try and be mindful for the next second, then the next and the next and not focus on having to do it for X minutes left but that hasn't helped too much. Over the last few weeks I have tried to really focus on only meditating when it's really pleasant just to encourage myself to see meditation as something I want to constantly do but I think this could have a lot of downside and doesn't seem to have had muc heffect so far.

Is this a standard process people go through? I have this feeling that I should be at the point where I truly just want to immerse myself in my meditation and not notice time go by like I have done in the past with video games, tv shows, books or work but it just doesn't happen. 

Try to take things very slowly. I would suggest starting with Brahmaviharas to get you in a positive mood (this will be good for you regardless), then try to stay with just one breath, then extend to five breaths, then extend to more until you're back in jhanas again. Consistency is more important and being able to stay consistent in rough waters is great exercise for the brain.

I would also do some insight and notice your attention span moving around from sense door to sense door and how each slight move has a little aversion in it. Relax your attention to objects (including mental objects like memories and thoughts) and then return to the breath.

Then find something pleasurable in the body and use that as a way to enjoy your meditations more. No meditations will be effortless. They actually develop when there is consistent effort (not over efforting) day after day. Unfortunately the stress relief is not as portable as mindfulness so any time you give up meditation for a long stretch the skill will atrophy and it'll be like starting all over again.  This is why mindfulness is superior.

You should also notice that many types of thought are very important and learning to block thought out is very useless in the work world.

How would you go about working on equanimity?  For the other brahma-viharas I assume a short metta meditation before I go into concentration would help. Equanimity seems not so obvious though. When you say try to stay with one breath, then five breaths, then more. That sounds a bit like what I tried before but I could see this being better then focusing on a second like I did before, which will always in some way keeps me thinking about time. If I try to extend to five breaths and have trouble, would you go back to 1 or stick to 5 until you get that right and then keep going?That's what I have been trying to do a lot. Really notice the pleasurable sensations of relaxing my body while focusing. Could you explain these a bit more please, I am not sure I really understood.Yeah I try to keep the mindset of although some of my thoughts are crucial in general, for the next x amount of time I want to free myself of thoughts to be at peace. I think this is why I can't do non timed meditations, I believe I am unconsciously afraid of maybe enjoying this too much and never leaving. 

If you want to get to equanimity via jhanas (the 4th jhana) you have to keep practicing the jhanas and staying in them until your brain naturally gets bored of them up to equanimity. Equanimity is not liking or disliking experience and feels more restful than the first three which will have a certain amount of obsession and clinging because they feel so nice. The stress related to keeping those jhanas leads the brain to look for something more restful and smooth. After the 4th jhana then the mind and body start dissolving up to a feeling of nothingness in the next 4 "immaterial" jhanas.

For counting the breath I would go back to 1 when you get lost and even go to 5 and count backwards to the keep the mind engaged. The understanding you need is that you are building the attention muscle every time you return to the breath. The best students, according to the Dalai Lama, don't analyze their meditation and return to the breath as soon as they are aware the mind has wandered. When you exercise the attention muscle there will be days when things are harder and days when they are easier just like weighlifting. Stay away from strong preferences to have a good meditation or else you'll quit too easily and not develop that muscle. Having stress over bad meditations and having preferences for good meditations is a big insight in how the brain gets irritated. It hates anything (including in meditation) that is a non-preference. Letting go of preferences (relax your attention to objects you react to) reduces stress even faster than jhanas do.

You may want to develop a welcoming practice and include all negative sensations and thoughts so the brain lets go of aversion at the beginning of your sit. This has to be done consistently like breath meditation to get some momentum in letting go of stressful controlling and tightness.

http://www.dharmaseed.org/talks/audio_player/210/9813.html

In answering your question to effort is that anything the brain hasn't practiced enough in, it will find it hard to do. So unless you're a jhana master it won't be effortless. Having jhanas being effortless would probably have to include getting stream-entry and have hours and hours of diligent practice. The only people I hear on this board talking about effortless jhanas is Dan Ingram.

To answer your question on the attention span, notice how your attention span moves with your eyes or ears or any other experience. It's like a spotlight and that spotlight is looking for things to judge as likeable or dislikeable. You can relax your attention to objects and still that jumping around of attention.

If you are afraid of never leaving concentration then don't be. If you are in it all the time you'll like get tired or move up the jhanas quickly. If you feel too addicted to it you can do the opposite and pay attention to anything including thoughts and wean yourself off of it with a mindfulness practice of your choosing.

Does that help?

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Does that help?Yes, thank you so much. That's plenty to work with now. Really appreciate the help!