Lodro Rinzler Discusses Daily Meditation and Retreat
If you are reading this, you are most likely not in a cave somewhere in the Himalayas, without distraction, and devoting all of your days and evenings to meditation practice. More likely, you are a person with a job, relationships, and various commitments and interests in addition to meditation. You are a modern day meditation practitioner.
Practitioner. Why do we use that word?
That question is at the heart of much of Lodro Rinzler’s teachings. As he puts it, what we are practicing for, when we are sitting on the cushion, is the rest of the hours of our waking day. We meditate so that we can show up more fully: in our work, families, social gatherings, and so on.
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The idea of continuity is important here. Being a meditation practitioner is not just about putting in our time on the cushion, and then calling it quits until tomorrow’s session. Rather, it’s about carrying that awareness into all aspects of our lives. We need to be practitioners in the office, in traffic, and at the dinner table.
Of course, in order to cultivate this ability, it’s crucial to actually maintain a daily practice — even if it’s ten minutes in the morning. And, in order to really deepen, it’s important to make time for extended retreat time — a week or more every so often.
All of this can be easier said than done, and no matter what your experience level, lots of questions and obstacles are bound to come up.
In order to help clarify some of these particulars, Lodro Rinzler took some time to have some discussion on the topic of meditation in our daily lives, and the importance of retreat.
We’re glad to say that he will be coming up here to SMC this spring to lead a wonderfully accessible, relevant, and powerful week-long retreat from March 19-27.
Click here to learn more about Week-long Spring Meditation Retreat with Lodro Rinzler (FREE TUITION), March 19-27.
About the Authors
Lodro Rinzler is a teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage and the award-winning author of five books on meditation, including the best-selling The Buddha Walks into a Bar and the recently released How to Love Yourself (And Sometimes Other People). He is the founder of the M N D F L and the Institute for Compassionate Leadership. LodroRinzler.com
Travis Newbill is a writer, musician, and aspirant on the path of meditation. He currently resides at Shambhala Mountain Center, where he handles the SMC Blog, and other marketing tasks. He also gives tours of the Great Stupa and is empowered as a Shambhala Guide — a preliminary teaching position. TravisNewbill.com
