How much meditation is too much meditation?

[SQAAD]

How many hours do you meditate and how many hours per day is the sweet spot for you?

 

I would love to hear your opinions.

[anitaR18]

That’s a great question I was wondering myself. I am brand new here, and have so much I want to explore and learn. I’m the type that often struggles to even give myself 10-15 minutes each day. What’s your current practice?

[SQAAD]

2 hours every day

[Rilles]

No more than 2 hours+ daily mindfulness. Too much sitting might make you a meditation-junkie. 

Personally I go for 20-30 mins a day. 

Edited December 25, 2018 by Rilles

[kieranperez]

There are monks and yogis who meditate 20 hours a day... Doing too much is not a valid concern for most people lol  

[Azote]

When you start to get headaches and nightmares and funny heat along your spine that probably means you should slow down.

Yep, find out your "doze" empirically

 

[zambize]

I think you should leave some up to flow and what you're feeling you should intuitively do that day.  I end up setting up like an hour every day, that's to make sure I can ensure progress.  Apart from that it depends on the day, I meditate when I feel like it, I self inquire when I feel about it, it's mostly down to flow and it can end up being 3 to 4 hours of meditation and self inquiry throughout the day.  But some days I dont feel like doing more than an hour of formal practice, and I'm super okay with that 

[Hellspeed]

5 hours ago, SQAAD said:

How many hours do you meditate and how many hours per day is the sweet spot for you?

 

I would love to hear your opinions.

There is never too much, it depends how much can you digest your own energy in pace with everything else. 

For myself to give you an example i meditate all the awake hours of the day, literally, every breath of air, no matter what i do. 

So this translates around 10h-20h a day. 

[ivory]

I know from personal experience that meditation can be used to avoid life. Spiritual bypassing. Too much meditation can be used as an escape from one's problems and responsibilities.

[ground]

11 hours ago, SQAAD said:

How many hours do you meditate and how many hours per day is the sweet spot for you?

 

I would love to hear your opinions.

meditation must be pleasure.  If it's no pleasure then let  go of meditation.

[Roman25]

9 hours ago, kieranperez said:

There are monks and yogis who meditate 20 hours a day... Doing too much is not a valid concern for most people lol  

I honestly don't think that that's healthy. Humans have needs that must be fulfilled. It's unnatural. Which is why spending hours on technology is unhealthy no matter what you use it for. Since it's unnatural.

[lmfao]

@SQAAD Past 90 minutes of meditation and my mind gets tired. If I try to meditate for too much longer than that the session gets too intense and mentally draining for me. Meditating for longer might be inefficient and I should be fine by just trying to retain subtle mindfulness throughout the day. 

You meditate for longer than me and are probably more experienced with meditation than me lol. The only thing I'll say is be careful not to burn yourself by doing way too much. I speculate that you can meditate for extremely long sessions so long as you don't let the repressed negativity which surfaces up consume you. 

 

Edited December 26, 2018 by lmfao

[kieranperez]

1 minute ago, Roman Edouard said:

I honestly don't think that that's healthy. Humans have needs that must be fulfilled. It's unnatural. Which is why spending hours on technology is unhealthy no matter what you use it for. Since it's unnatural.

Meet the people who've actually done that and see the results of that. The last thing you're going to see and think of them as is unhealthy. People devote their entire lives to pursuing truth. This term "unnatural" is a meaningless label. The quality of your pursuits matter. First off, I was making a bigger point here. Not suggesting that he needs to start meditating 20 hours a day. I was pointing out that the very last concern people need to have is whether they're meditating too much. However if he built up too quick that's a different case. 

[SQAAD]

@ground Meditation is my GF.

[zambize]

3 hours ago, ground said:

meditation must be pleasure.  If it's no pleasure then let  go of meditation.

What if an hour a day of not pleasureful meditation, could lead to the other 15 waking hours to be extremely blissful, would you still let go of meditation?  Could you explain yourself a bit more for me?

[kieranperez]

3 hours ago, ground said:

meditation must be pleasure.  If it's no pleasure then let  go of meditation.

If you take real meditation seriously with an honest intent on waking up to the Absolute, then this expectation is hogwash. If you want to dabble in 10 minutes of feeling good with some guided meditations, okay sure, that can feel pleasurable but only because you're not actually fully investing into meditation as a practice, as a discipline, as an art, as a way to collapse your reality and wake up. This is the same thing I hear all the time as a runner when I people go talking about how running is graceful, meditative, peaceful, blah blah blah. Those people who say that a. aren't that serious or love running enough to run long enough or with enough intent to really get good at it and stretch yourself, b. every art is hard. In fact art is the hardest work you'll ever do. Meditation is no different. Zen monks, yogis, nuns, etc. who go through real no bullshit meditation will scare the average person with the description and the intensity of how hard meditation can be. Again, I'm not saying people need to quit their jobs and livelihood to go through that nor does that mean you can't reach/awaken to say the No-Self all because you don't train like a Zen monk or a yogi or something. However, meditation if taken as a legitimate practice is very hard. I don't care about the 0.0001% that meditation and concentration practice comes easy to because these are exceptions. Look at what The Buddha went through before his enlightenment. Read about the Marathon Monks of Mt. Hiei. That's no joke and there's a reason they go through that. 

So it depends on one's intent with meditation and it's important you're honest with yourself about what your intent is and has been and also what you want it to be. If it's a 10 minute ritual to center your mind and calm down or practice gratitude or something, that's awesome. Just don't confuse that with real meditation (and I don't want the italics on "real" to be taken as though one is superior to the other. Just see it as the difference between someone who goes for a 2 mile run every morning just to wake up and get the blood moving before the day is started and an actual runner). 

[Hellspeed]

3 hours ago, SQAAD said:

@ground Meditation is my GF.

Greatest pointer ever!  

[ground]

6 hours ago, zambize said:

What if an hour a day of not pleasureful meditation, could lead to the other 15 waking hours to be extremely blissful, would you still let go of meditation?  Could you explain yourself a bit more for me?

'What if' is speculation. If meditation is appropriate you let go of speculation.

[ground]

6 hours ago, kieranperez said:

If you take real meditation seriously with an honest intent on waking up to the Absolute, then this expectation is hogwash.

you are cultivating a beginner's view. you should let go of that. Appropriate meditation may help to let go of beginner's view.

[Preetom]

9 hours ago, kieranperez said:

 This term "unnatural" is a meaningless label. The quality of your pursuits matter

this is spot on. Everything was unnatural..until it became the norm