Meditation Practice Transcending the Global Hack of #COVID-19 and Preparing Life for the New Normal in Post-COVID Landscape
Author: Eleanor Choke-jaya
Posted on: 15th May 2020
Keywords: #meditation, #Buddhism, #religious, #immigration, #pandemic, #Coronavirus, #panic, #fear, #workfromhome, #global, #lockdown
Length: 1432 words
Many of the mornings’ new arrivals seem to be challenging guests. Yet no one expected any quite as challenging as the Coronavirus. People are now afraid because of taking the Coronavirus crisis seriously: socially distancing, buying extra food, and checking in on friends, neighbors, and family. ‘Self-quarantine’ and ‘flattening the curve’ has become the new buzzword so far in 2020, along with hashtags on social media such as #StayHomeSaveLives and #SelfIsolation. By now all know what it all means and how to do things like washing your hands, staying two-meter apart, etc.
Meanwhile, there are those putting their head in the sand, pretending that it is no big deal, while others continue to work on the front lines, risking their health for the rest. Some people are turning towards the comfortable dualistic thinking of racism, blaming other cultures for the crisis, while some are fearing the worst in the coming months because of the color of their skin.
During the stressful COVID-19 pandemic, fear and panic seem to be spreading just as quickly as the virus. But, even though it is normal to feel panic and anxiety in this moment, it is not totally necessary or helpful. People feel this way because they are over determining the present. According to scientific facts, when people are overexposed to the news, they immediately assume the worst.
To help decreasing anxiety and increasing mental well-being during this time of the circuit breaker while people around the world are spending more time at home, to prevent the super spread, is to engage time by doing things like reading, walking, cooking, writing about lock-down experience; all practices that slow people down and bring them back to fundamentals because it is an unknown when this is over, whether it is in the one-to-two month timeline or more realistically in a year or more.
However, despite all effort put into making the sheltering-at-home period less boring and stressful, the unknowing-end isolation can cause a difficult period to many because by nature humans are social animals, so isolation is never healthy; it causes mental and physical fatigue as people cannot touch one another. Most people were not aware that not leaving the house could be so exhausting. Moreover, a study of people quarantined after a SARS outbreak showed that some suffered PTSD and depression from the experience, and the longer they were quarantined, the higher the likelihood of symptoms.
Buddhists may argue that Buddhism encourages a form of self-isolating practice called retreat; this oldest practice was extolled and is now becoming trendy, a kind of cool thing to experience and share on the internet. But one different thing between #COVID self-isolation and Buddihist retreat is that Buddhist retreat is a self-willing isolation unlike the #COVID unprepared lockdown with not much happening in a day-to-day basis, most importantly if people engage the lockdown with meditation like a retreat, meditation will help them cultivate equanimity and wisdom and energize them with positive energy and ready them to back to the new normal of the ever-changing post-COVID-19 landscape.
For the time being, meditation is a powerful weapon to combat against the despair #COVID-19 wrought as it is capable to enhance mindfulness which induces a state of flow. This flow state can provide relief from the onslaught of anxiety and dismay. A guided meditation can also help people embody their best qualities even when they are deep in the heart of their darkness, enhancing their mindfulness and loving-kindness to keep them relaxed and confident.
Experts said that even practitioners cannot focus the mind well as being a beginner; the least, when they are actually sitting down meditating, things are suddenly not so bad. And this feeling help moisturizing mental hardship through this difficult and uncertain time.
Fortunately, meditation centers have adapted to the threat of Coronavirus by switching in-person meditation programs and religious events to online platforms. By this way, under the lockdown measure, it is possible to create a virtual meditation hall through the power of collective intention while participants are sitting in different parts of the planet. Joining with friends or other people to try a guided meditation practice online, to experience this simplest mental practice to cultivate the ability to ‘just stop’ may be not easy at first to align the body and mind as naturally people struggle to slow down but they should do so anyway.
Then, a quick meditation practice via the internet to navigate fear and despair brought on by this invisible, intractable, unstoppable Coronavirus crisis can be any time when needed. This virtual meditation hall also present care and heartwarming effect on each other even if through the screens. Participants experience same stillness and sense of interconnectedness with others from their homes.
The #COVID-19 pandemic affects all humans alike regardless of race, faith, status, etc., most interesting phenomenon is that throughout this outbreak, people saw numbers of world elites ranging from the Britain’s Prince of Wales, the British Prime minister Boris Johnson, Prince Albert of Monaco, Mrs. Trudeau, wife of Canadian President, and other Hollywood actors/celebrities such as Tom Hanks, just to name a few came out to the media announcing that they were infected and gone under self-quarantine. It demonstrates that this novel Coronavirus does not spread within the world unhygienic living area but everywhere indiscriminately starting from East Asia, mainland China along way to Europe crossing the Atlantic to US so it is no doubt that this virus is the co-arch-enemy to Homo sapiens at a whole. Thus all world population shares the concerns and the responsibility to find the solution.
At the moment, speculating on what a post-Coronavirus world looks like seems impossible, but the best way is to make changes when we are in the middle of a challenging time. By staying open and seeing the fact that life’s unpredictability is full of interesting and invigorating challenges. These challenges engage us in unexpected and unanticipated ways and allow us for the freedom of unscripted responsiveness.
So far, a global brainstorming marathon has been conducted and it has been throwing together brilliant ideas from around the world to rapidly develop solutions to combat the Coronavirus pandemic. This is the call to hack the crisis and it is not only to prevent and stop the spreading of a highly-infectious disease but also to think about how people’s lives will be different after this.
The global movement on this issue needs to come together in a unified hackathon direction and every country needs to involve to create projects that have a strong international socio-economic impact and create the needed rapid change. Obviously, the adjustment responsiveness is a step that is hard to skip on the way to the new normal. And this is called Right action. Right action is more than just an action; it springs from the attunement to moment but does not confine in the unskillful means causing unwholesome consequences.
Looking ahead, chances are that respecting social distancing guidelines while being outside the house may appear to be common practice even after the lockdown exit as studies have shown that #COVID-19 will be around and continue to be at risk until effective treatments and, potentially, a vaccine are produced. There are recommendations that it might be necessary to institute social distancing policies until 2022!
How long social distancing is going to last is not as much important as people’s awareness that social distancing does not necessarily mean people need to stop caring and communicating in a social way.
And meditation will continue to be a contribution to the modern world after the pandemic blues as people will be inspired to carry on meditation as it is an introduction to insight, which needs to be applied to navigate life through the severe economic, social, and educational setting after post-COVID-19. After all, meditation is a practice that is well-suited to all even to those who do not necessarily like religion. If people institute meditation a habitual practice as a new normal, it will create a healthy habit and level of strength to them in the way that chanting along can never match.
Finally, you all are welcomed to a guided meditation session now. Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UHDYOJJ8oc
https://aloosechitchatblogg.blogspot.com/p/meditation-retreat.html
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