Lodro Rinzler, “Meditation: Finding Contentment in Everyday Life,” Huffington Post, 11/1/2011

This article, written by Lodro Rinzler (a meditation practitioner and teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage), portrays what people are looking for when they walk into a meditation center.  Rinzler says that the main reason people come to meditation centers is because they are looking for a sense of contentment in their life.  The three main principles (outlined in the article) of gaining this sense of contentment are discernment, gentleness, and learning to be now.  When reading about these three principles it reminded me of the movie we watched in class about Vipassana and how it is used for people in prisons.  The word vipassana literally means to see things as they are (reality) and this concept was put very straight forward  in the article: “the heart of meditation practice is learning to be content with what is going on right now.”  Prisoners going though the 10 day session of Vipassana gave them the time and space to face their struggles, deal with them, and come to a realization of reality. This form of meditation was more of a healing type of treatment (non-religious).  The type of meditation that Rinzler talks about is more religious based, but it is obvious from many other articles that meditation in the Western world is not necessarily for religious purposes; meditation is done more to understand one’s behaviors in the present and to learn how to deal with the struggles and stresses in life.