What is the benifits of doing a 5 minute meditation ?   and in isolation from other formal meditations and un-formal meditations (daily life mindfulness)

i understand it wont do any good for samatha but for someone practicing vipassana does it "do" anything

and im asking for example on meditating once a day - or once a week or a month or even a year

lets say i meditate 5 minutes a month and i am not mindful at all all the other time - is there any good in that ? 

whats the amount of meditation or daily mindfulness needed so it wont be a waste of effort ? if i meditate 20 minutes once a month will i advance somewhere ?

 If there is the ceasing of paying attention upon ending the 5 minute meditation with the mind returning to the usual unsatisfactory habitual patterns without paying attention up until the next 5 minute meditation, and this does not change after some time of 5 minute meditation practice, then there is little benefit. If there is a sublte or obvious progression towards paying attention more so in all positions during the time in between continued 5 minute meditations, gradually filling up the gaps of not paying attention, then there is benefit.

It depends on one's conditioning and ability to pay attention to the goings on of the field of experience. Personally, I sat 2 to 4 hours a day and that is what led to fast progress for my own conditioning at the time. Now, 5 minutes of specific paying attention techniques lead very quickly to interesting results, but this is due to current somewhat changed conditioning. 

Water drop;

Here's a question for you, why are you asking the question? I think you will find many posts on this site that will say something to the effect of "as long as you can, as often as you can". Meditation is a skill that some can't learn or improve on in 5 minutes. The question reminds me of students who have no desire to actually learn a subject, just want to know the minimum work needed for a passing grade. This of course may not be the case. I wish you luck.

As regards to Meditation you are basically training yourself in a skill.

If you were to teach a child how to ride a bicycle, and you only let them spend 5 minutes a month on the bicycle, how good do you think they would get riding the bicycle? If you let them have access to the bicycle 5 minutes a week?  5 minutes a day?  What if they had access to the bicycle and rode it all day as much as they were able, every day?

One can learn the skill of Mindfulness and practice the skill of Mindfulness all day, in any situation...

Mindfulness of the Four Frames of Reference,  Body, Sensations, Mind, and Mental Qualities

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.010.than.html


Psi

Water Drop, 

From your other posts, it seems you have been on long retreats and such, why do you ask such questions in your original posts?

If you are serious, I guess the 5 minutes would be well spent if one gained a permanent insight from the 5 minute meditation.

Or maybe I am missing the meaning or intention of your original post.

Psi

I do want to add, that if at some time in your life, you did only have 5 minutes to meditate, say you had 5 minutes before you had to leave for work or something, I ask you would that five minutes then be beneficial or non-beneficial?

 But, on the other hand, to plan to practice only five minutes a week or a month or something, that would not be right mindfulness or right concentration.

Done here.
Psi

I'd recommend you try it and find out.
I'd be interested in your results.
~D

You can use meditation simply to feel better in the moment.  Five minutes is probably all you need for that.  If you only meditate once in a great while for five minutes it isn't going to have any long term effects, probably, but a simple samatha meditation can be a nice passtime and can help a person relax or get rid of negative mind states.  I approach all my meditation this way, actually, haha, I just do it every day and it seems to have a cumulative effect.

- what is a permananet insight ?

i understood for instance you can fall back from a certin nana - so what can be counted as a gained insight ?

 

 

Is this just idle speculation?
Why don't you discuss this from direct expedience?
Recommendations -
1) Sit
2) Experience several Nanas
3) Explore permanency of Nanas
4) Report back your personal first hand experiences to discuss.
Good luck,
~D

i did several retreats i sat some time and i expirenced the nanas-     i was explained about the nanas in a whole different way and i read here you can fall from a nana also many teachers talk about the importance of a "steady consistent practice"  and i do have periods of many days that i dont bother to meditate so i wonder if  i lost some "insights" since i started meditating some years ago - and maybe i should make a decision to sit a minimum amount of time and to understand how important it is - or is being mindful of a sitting movment worth it if its only noting of one movment also i have doubts about my progress and maybe i didnt progress much because i took "breaks" ect ect there are much more reasons why im asking this its not a single reason

im not asking this so i can do the minimum  so if you tell me 5 minutes is the time

I know that mindfulness is the issue and that "unformal(daily)  mediatition" can be very helpful 

I dont want people to tell me "yes do your best meditate as much as you can" - i would love to be able to belive it but from expirence it dosnt help 

i would like to ask people about their expirence their conclusions and also about their theoretical knoldege also on stuff like nanas which i read here in DhO is something you can "fallback" in and also if i read on the importance of steady practice what does it mean on un-steady practice ? how important it really is - and also to ask about the insights - what are they - do they strengthen over time ? are the insights part of the nana there in ect ect

of course its best to practice but at the moment any info i get can help me continue to put the huge amount of time i put into this - and not only help me continue but to do it in a smart way