Spacious Solidarity Blog: Day 56

It’s Sunday, Buddha Day and another full day of teaching. First I’ve got my morning session with the retreat I’m leading on Zoom. Then in the early afternoon I’m running a session for my local Buddhist centre on the Anapanasati Sutta (mindfulness of in and out breathing). Finally in the late afternoon I’m back on Zoom with my retreat, leading an intention-setting ritual.

Buddha Day, or Wesak, is a Buddhist festival celebrating the enlightenment of the Buddha. A fitting day to teach.

Over coffee I reflect on what I’d like to share with the group this morning. I’d like to say something about non-violence, as a principle and a practice. How it supports us to meet the various parts of us that show up when we sit down to meditate with non-judgement and unconditional love.

So often the temptation is to try and manage ourselves in a way that leads to suppression of or indulgence in these various parts. Neither way of relating being particularly helpful to awakening.

The session goes well, although instead of saying any of what I’ve reflected on, I end up talking about pleasant experiences in meditation and how opening up to them can help us to resource ourselves when we notice the signs of overwhelm. It’s related to what I wanted to say, but different.

Teaching can be such a mysterious process. There’s so much I want to say that may or may not align with what wants to be said. There’s also where the group is at in any given moment. And what feels appropriate once I actually have real people in front of me, and I’m tuning into their energy and what’s needed.

Trusting emergence in the space of teaching leads me in surprising directions and at the end of the day it all seems to work. The good news is no one but me knows what I’ve left out, haven’t had time to mention, or forgotten to say.

After the morning session I’ve got about an hour to eat lunch and relax a bit before getting back on Zoom.

The thing I love most about the Buddha’s meditation instructions is that they are also a description of what naturally unfolds when we bring curiosity to our experience.

Starting with the breath, the body becomes more sensitive and calm.

Moving into the sensations arising and passing in the body, we start to notice that some are pleasant, some unpleasant, some neutral. Based on this we either want certain aspects of our experience, don’t want other aspects, or don’t know, don’t care or are completely oblivious of the rest.

As absorption in breath and body deepens, tension releases and energy begins to move more freely. We can notice and enjoy this.

Then we can get curious about the effect on the mind, which is becoming steady, clear, still and luminous.

From here, thoughts and emotions that used to take over and run our life are seen more clearly for what they are. Simply passing phenomena. We see that when we cling to or suppress them, we suffer. And when we don’t, suffering ceases.

Finally, it starts to become clear that all of life is like this. Changing sensations, thoughts and emotions arising and passing in awareness. When we stop trying to do anything with our experience it is allowed to simply be, just as it is.

There is great freedom in that seeing, which can also be directly experienced.

I have half an hour before I need to get back on Zoom. I’m experimenting with using the technology as part of the intention-setting ritual.

Firstly they share their intentions in small breakout rooms.

Then I invite them chant “together” while making offerings to their shrines and typing their intentions into the chat box. Later I’ll save the document and share it with them in a Dropbox folder.

Chanting together on Zoom is a nightmare. I already know this so suggest we simply follow the voice of the person who starts the mantra, everyone else staying muted.

It works ok but I realise I really miss hearing other voices, the beauty of joining in, listening deeply and syncing with the group to co-create harmony and depth.

After the class one of the participants, who is also a friend who lives near-by, comes over with half a vegan rhubarb cake in a cardboard box. We chat on the doorstep at a safe distance.

She works for the NHS but because of internal politics has had little to do from home. She says she’s been focusing on her practice. She looks happy and relaxed.

There is way too much cake for both of us, especially since my partner isn’t eating any sugar at the moment. I cut it in two, put half in a Tupperware and leave it outside my upstairs neighbor’s door. It’s the least I can do after fairy and tea cakes.

I spend the rest of the evening writing until it’s time to watch Boris tell us what’s next.

He says he wants to provide us with a sense of what’s ahead and on what basis the government will be making future decisions about easing the lockdown. So far, so good.

I’m struck by how often he uses the language of being in a battle, needing to work together to defeat this thing, like we’re at war.

He refers to the plan he is about to unveil as conditional. You can tell he’s trying to be careful not to make any promises he can’t keep. He speaks with cautious optimism, with the caution coming across much more than the optimism, which isn’t at all convincing.

He says before we can come out of the lockdown we have to pass five tests.

Firstly we have to make sure the NHS can cope with the number of COVID patients. Then we have to see a sustained and consistent drop in the death rate. OK, sounds good.

Then the rate of infection has to decrease to a manageable level. Hmm, that sounds more complicated. How are we going to know that?

Apparently the rate of infection, the R number, has to be below 1. This is how many people any one person is likely to infect. Without widespread testing I don’t know how the fuck we’re going to figure that one out.

Fourthly, we have to ensure that the supply of PPE and tests can meet future demand. Hang on a minute! We’re not even meeting current demand.

Finally, we have to be sure that any changes we make to our social distancing behavior doesn’t lead to a second peak, leading us back to failing the first test, overwhelming the NHS.

I’ve always known deep down in my bones that we were going to be in this for the long haul. That I had to let go of any hope for the future, any plans I may have for as far out as I had already planned my life.

And yet planning has continued. Throughout the lockdown period I have been filling my 2021 schedule with retreats, at retreat centres, where people go, and share rooms and bathrooms and sit together in stuffy shrine rooms breathing the same air for hours on end.

We’ll be lucky if we’re out of this thing by the middle of next year, at the earliest. Fuck.

The next thing I know the Prime Minister is talking about millions of everyday acts of kindness and thoughtfulness. I have to snicker at that. Telling construction workers that they have to go back to work while white collar professionals get to stay at home is the least kind or thoughtful thing I’ve heard out of anyone’s mouth since the beginning of this thing.

Oh but he’s sure that at the end of the day we’re going to come out of this a more generous and more sharing nation. Yeah, I bet you are. You need all those essential workers and people who can’t do their job from home to be super generous and sharing right now, don’t you?

At the end we are reminded to:

Stay Alert

Control the virus

Save lives

I’ll tell you what I’m staying alert to, authoritarian and increasingly fascist governments trying to use this crisis as an excuse to sell off the NHS, limit our freedoms, and put the most vulnerable amongst us at risk of death to keep the economy going.

Now I’m not saying I don’t support the lockdown. I do. But I also support leadership. This isn’t leadership, this is vague, self-serving bullshit. If I were any more cynical I would think it was intentional.

I’m in a pretty bad mood after watching Boris. And I don’t care. I’ll sleep it off.

We eat dinner and decide to watch a film. Destroyer with Nicole Kidman. She’s so raw, playing a washed-up, bent LAPD detective out for revenge and with a death wish.

Its straight up, ole school cops and robbers material, but with a strong, tragic female lead and it doesn’t end well, although she does eventually get her man.

It’s just what I needed after Boris.