The Pause

(Image from pixabay.com)

The pandemic has turned our lifestyles upside-down, unimaginably so. The closest health scare I have witnessed was the plague outbreak in India in 1994. I was in Delhi at that time, and the fear had reached a stage where a significant number of people had started wearing masks. And yet, it was nothing like what we are facing now.

The situation remains very painful & distressing – considering the number of people getting infected and the deaths. In such difficult times, it is good to see that there are people who continue to find ways to cope in a positive way in the current situation. When this is over, hopefully soon, along with the sense of relief, there will certainly be the deep pain on our loss.

The few positives for now include cleaner air, animals & birds moving around freely other than more family time for most. Many have expressed this as being about ‘Nature reclaiming itself’. A more accurate description though would be ‘The most selfish, cruel, destructive & inconsistent species on the planet has temporarily confined itself. However, this reprieve is entirely temporary, and there is little to suggest that the behaviour of this species will change in any way”.


“Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.”
― Jacques-Yves Cousteau

Mindfulness theory teaches us that one of the best things we can achieve is to insert a pause in our responses to situations. This is extremely difficult and requires lots & lots of practice (often over years). Both neuroscience & mindfulness converge here – we do not really have free will, if we want to have some, we need to build it over time. We are in a period of maximum opportunity to insert pauses in what we do – as a lot of what we do itself has been paused. This could be an opportunity to pause, reflect & change our behaviours: experience our oneness, stop exploitation & cruelty to animals, halt the destruction of nature etc.


“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

All of these however, require us to confront our deep-rooted beliefs and clear the cobwebs in our mind. This is not easy - in fact it is extremely difficult. Yuval Noah Harari, an intellectual I much admire, in his recent posts & interviews on the current situation talks about how global co-operation is much the need of the hour to defeat the pandemic. After reading, I wondered why he was setting the bar so low? Yuval Noah Harari in his book ‘Sapiens’ had called out our species for what we are – ruthless, greedy & inconsistent. Why then is he not advocating a more radical transformation? But then, I recognized that he was setting some realistic expectations – long term thinking is not a human strength, neither is clearing our mental cobwebs for deeper behaviour change. Our inherent mental cobwebs and the divisions we see today, reinforced by social media interaction represent strong inhibitors for change. Brene Brown described the phenomenon well in her book ‘Braving the wilderness’ – we do not post or interact on social media to dialog openly – learn & share, rather it is to reinforce our beliefs further. This can stretch to ridiculous extents when a call from a leader to instill a sense of positivity invites criticism of whether this will drive away the pandemic. As a matter of fact, this was never the stated aim, but if you firm your position, you feel constrained to criticize even this simple gesture.


“Someday, I hope that we will all be patriots of our planet and not just of our respective nations.”
― Zoe Weil

And yet, in the midst of the gloom, there is the opportunity which the pause provides to rid ourselves of our deeply ingrained speciesism, constant seeking of pleasure, wastefulness, self-centeredness and purposeless busyness.


Purpose

Awareness

Unity

Silence

Empathy

How are you?

(Image from pixabay.com)

Mindfulness practice has introduced me to several wonderful teachers, their talks and writings. One of the key learning has been how easily we trust our beliefs and feelings, which most likely are influenced by what we are told, see and hear since long. For a more scientific view of this, I recommend ‘Behave’ by Robert Sapolsky. One of the aspects of this is how we substitute an experience with words & an opinion. J Krishnamurti talks about how when children see a bird soar, they do it with a sense of wonder. After that, we provide them with words - ‘Crow’, ‘Sparrow’, ‘Kite’ etc and the novelty is all but lost. The sense of wonderment is diluted, and what is left is a word. Similarly, we do that to people as well – as Adyashanti and many others explain. 

I have been attending a course by Fleur Chambers on the Insight Timer app (I recommend both strongly). She started this particular session with ‘How are you?’. Well, a nice and very familiar greeting to start the session I thought. As I progressed into the session and practice, I realised that this was a serious question and the session was a moving experience, with the question repeating again. 

One of the things most of us do is to convert a well meaning & caring question to a greeting, with an idea to move on to other matters as quickly as possible. At the same time, those who have practised mindfulness for long do not do that. Their eyes tell the story. Many who have seen this, talk about the calmness in their gaze, but there is more – intensity, caring and very deep attention. 

Mindfulness teachings advise you to withdraw to silence. While it conjures up images of seclusion and negation of the world, in reality it is to help you view the world afresh – erasing preconceived notions about people, animals, birds, nature and everything else. More than anything, the world at the minimum, deserves our full attention. 

And so, with the deepest of attention, respect, care and love which everyone & everything in the world fully deserves, I ask again with sincerity: 

How are you?