Reflections on COVID-19: Why Do We Want to Live?
I’ve known U Viveka since the days before his ordination, when he volunteered to draw artwork for the meditator’s guidebook to Myanmar project. It was so wonderful to work with him again on another creative Dhamma project, this time to get his views on how his meditation practice has informed his views during the pandemic. His talk on the topic is such an aid to meditators everywhere trying to find stability of mind during this difficult time. Please take a listen if you haven’t already!
“And we can perhaps see an opportunity in this situation where we can reconsider how we’ve organized our life, and how we’ve built it on certain values as well.”
“It’s a great time for community, and reaching out to our friends and family and letting them know where we're there. And that we care, and just getting in touch and supporting each other. And also, of course, there are many organizations and all the health care workers are doing so much work, beautiful work and many people need help. So that's also something that we can invest our time and energy in, and it's very, very positive.
And also, there are some reflections that can be quite beautiful to have at this time. And one of them comes from my teacher, U Tejaniya. We have these great discussions at breakfast sometimes, and [recently one person was] just saying how nobody wants to die. And this is very obvious, right, everybody wants to live! But then Sayadaw asked his question: 'Why do we want to live?'
And you can play around with this question. But for me, it raises another type of question: 'what really matters most for us in life?'
So at this time where our usual life schedule has changed radically, and things seem a bit uncertain, and so things are shaken up a bit. And we can perhaps see an opportunity in this situation where we can reconsider how we've organized our life, and how we've built it on certain values as well. And it might be a time for some of us, if you feel inspired, to kind of going back to the essence of what really matters most in this life.
It's quite a beautiful question to ask, and I hope it's helpful. I hope everybody can take care of their health and also of their mind to keep a wholesome mind, and keep up your meditation practice. It's a beautiful gift to the world at this point. And if you can take care of others, of course do that!”