ETA: It may be useful to alternate focusing on concentration vs observation, seeing as you may only be able to make certain observations after developing your concentration to some threshold.

It seems as if there's a few standard approaches here:

• Buddhaghosa suggests entering (the fourth?) jhana and then retreating, after which the mind will be naturally very concentrated, sharp, and ready for insight meditation.
• In contrast, the Samaññaphala Sutta and other suttas suggest entering the fourth jhana and engaing in insight meditation from there, without leaving.
• "One approach emphasized insight practice almost exclusively, feeling that since insight gives rise to the wisdom necessary for enlightenment, this was what was more important. An excellent example of a sutta reflecting this approach is the Sammaditthi Sutta (Majjhima Nikaya #9). Here Sariputta gives a beautiful discourse on Right View. He discussed 16 important topics and ends each topic by saying "When a noble disciple has thus understood [the topic], he uproots the underlying tendency to greed, hatred, the 'I am' conceit and ignorance, and arousing true knowledge he here and now makes an end of suffering." Here enlightenment is achieved solely through insights; the Jhanas are not even mentioned."

I definitely can't enter the fourth jhana at whim, nor do I feel at all prepared for vipassana meditation. But I think this confirms your reasoning that there are many potentially successful approaches to balancing concentration and mindfulness, which might be good to keep in mind.

Sorry, I kept on editing and editing my comment! But anyway.

In the end I think it comes down to this: you need to develop concentration and you need to apply it in non-judgmental observation of your own mental processes. Some traditions encourage practicing these separately while some indicate that you should practice them in the same sitting. It seems natural to just think of them as a single technique, and this is the perspective I tried to take in my post.

Yeah, I think the whole concentration/mindfulness dichotomy hadn't really clicked with me yet; I understood the distinction, but couldn't identify their qualia. Thinking back on my meditation experiences now, though, I understand their difference.

This is the kind of vipassana taught at the dhamma.org courses. Here's how I mentally unified this and anapanasati: I think of the mental procedure of systematically observing the parts of your body as your anchor, which you return to in between observing what's naturally arising in your mind.

That seems very natural and clever.

As for the jhanas, I've never really thought much about them. I'm certainly interested though.

I had only a vague idea of what they were until I experienced that incredible body high / uncontainable bliss and checked Wikipedia and the like for what that possibly could have been. Some texts said 'they are distracting, practice vipassana instead' but reading this and just generally looking at how Buddha attained enlightenment via the jhanas made me think that my efforts should be aimed at mastering as many jhanas as quickly as I can. As much as I love meditation, the penultimate goal is awesomeness, and the jhanas are awesome.

Hence I'm a tad wary of the various vipassana practices and will probably keep to anapanasati till I get strong diminishing marginal returns on jhana achievement. (Various texts talk about how desiring jhana makes you less likely to attain jhana. I think what they mean though is thinking about jhana during meditation, not when planning meditative styles beforehand. Hence the Buddha telling people to do jhana, obviously implying that they could achieve jhana despite deciding to aim for it beforehand.)