It's not uncommon for people to report that their lives have been completely transformed by an hour of meditation a day. If you really want to make progress through the Four Paths of Enlightenment, though, you'll have to tear down the wall between "cushion" time and the rest of your life. Enlightenment comes from seeing that experiences arise and pass away in each moment without referring back to anyone. Even the sense of "I" is just one of the things that come and go. Every moment of seeing this is a moment of enlightenment; when you string enough of these moments together your mind changes in some fundamental way and you are officially "enlightened" by the Theravada Buddhist definition. So, you have to practice more than an hour a day; ideally, you practice all day long, on the cushion and off. Every moment of your life, whether you are concentrated or not, is an opportunity to see clearly. Try it now. Can you feel the sensation of pressure against your body or your feet? If you can feel that and label it "pressure," you are experiencing a moment of freedom; it's happening, but it isn't happening to "you." Surely you must be the one who is looking. Anything that "you" can look at is not "you." This one simple concept explains how enlightenment works. Anything that can be "objectified," or taken as an object of the mind, is not you. Since everything that arises withing your experience can be objectified, there is no "you" to be found. But knowing this as an idea won't get the job done. You must do the practice, all day long, of objectifying your experience. I've written a one-page set of instructions for how to do it: http://kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/How+to...

Good luck! Let me know how it goes.

Kenneth