About This Answer
A meditator cannot sit in peace for more than fifteen minutes and asks how to sit longer without thoughts, and whether simply staying still without interfering with thoughts helps them stop. Ajahn Dtun says it comes from training. Sit for fifteen minutes, change posture when tired, then sit another fifteen; sitting often, the time will grow. He himself began with five or ten minutes, and by sitting often came to sit for half an hour, then one, two or three hours.
He compares it to sport: no one can compete without training, and if one player practises for an hour and another for four or five hours, the one who practises more will win. Every person can train with patience and effort; he suggests sitting fifteen minutes ten times a day.
Just sitting still and observing thoughts does not make them stop. Thoughts keep welling up like water from a spring. But if one keeps the mind with the breath, thoughts become fewer and fewer until they disappear.