How Long Should I Chant?

In chanting. as with most things we do, it's not the time involved as much as the focus and quality. If I sit on a meditation cushion in the chanting hall and chant for an hour with wandering thoughts one after another, I may look impressive but my chanting will be mediocre.

If however, I find that I have five minutes before I need to do something and quickly settle into my chanting, the benefits of my focused chanting can far outweigh my hour of wandering thoughts chasing one another around my head. Our focus should be on both quality and quantity, not just quantity.

This question of how long leads to another question, "When should I chant?"

With so much to do today, it can be difficult to find the ideal time to practice. It is tempting to wait until we can do some "serious" chanting. When we are home or at our Buddhist center and have a few hours to really get into our practice.

If we wait for ideal conditions, we will end up spending very little time chanting. Most of us do not yet have enough good fortune to have ideal conditions. So we need to be appreciative and work with what we do have. It's far better to chant for ten or twenty minutes a day than wait for that one long weekly chanting session. As with all our practice, we are training to do things more effectively. As we become more skilled at focusing on "Amituofo," we will create the goodness that can result in improved practice conditions. With better conditions, comes more chanting time and more focused chanting.