How much meditation?

I think anything that gets you started is good, and short times are fine to begin with. Right now I have a busy schedule which means short times but I find that most of the time I need at least 30 minutes to really work through getting my mind turned off, work through some boredom and a fidgety body, and then actually do more of what I sat down to do. I hate to start attempting to describe this because so many authors do a better job, but focusing on what I would call insight. I probably spent the first 10 years just sitting and getting my mind to shut up before I understood the focus part. And I am still doing an inadequete job describing it. So I would try to work up to 30 minutes a little at a time so you get past that boredom threshold.

I agree with Xmac about focusing on time being a distraction in and of itself, and also that if meditation becomes another thing on the to-do list, it's sort of missing the point, as is meditating solely to "get something out of it." However, I find that I feel/think/behave "better" when I regularly meditate, and in turn respond to others more positively and more compassionately, so I'm attached to that outcome! There's the old story about the man who goes to the yogi saying "Guru, I used to meditate an hour a day, but now my wife is sick and I'm taking care of the children, plus I also have to go to work, and clean the house, and cook the food, and take care of my wife, and I just don't have time to meditate. What should I do?" The yogi answers, "Meditate three hours a day."

So for me, meditation is kind of like exercise. For both, I have a history of doing for awhile, then dropping it for weeks or months, then picking it up again, and so on. I've stopped beating myself up about this pattern, but when I want to start meditating or exercising again, I do notice that I have to get back into it gradually. So for increasing my "endurance," I do the same thing with meditation as I do with walking. The first day, I set a small timer for, say, two minutes. I begin to meditate and when the timer goes off, I'm done for the day. The next day, I set it for three minutes, and so on. In about a month, I'm up to about thirty minutes, which is really my own personal "saturation point" so far. (With walking, when the timer goes off I simply turn around and retrace my steps until I reach my starting point...in a month you can get up to walking an hour a day!)

Thanks for inspiring me to get back to meditating, after a lapse of several months! :)

Selah,
it sounds to me as if the guru in your story was trying to point out that meditation is about attention which doesn't have to take the form of formal sitting meditation. Everything we do can be meditation if it is done with presence/attention. There's a Buddhist line about doing the dishes as if every dish was a baby Buddha.

I find it's really quite wonderful-feeling if I sit for 15 minutes each morning. ymmv. Try different things -- see how you feel inside. Only you know what's right for you.

It would be hard to add to the wonderful response you received from Din and Xmac!

I would tend copy and read those posts several times.

Sitting with eyes closed is 'special meditation' - the rest of the day is 'ordinary meditation'.
These two are like length and bredth - they must always be together or there is nothing.