Working With Fear During A Pandemic

Venerable Thubten Chodron leads a guided practice to help us uncover the source of our anxiety and face our deepest fears during this coronavirus pandemic. She encourages us to use this opportunity to turn to our spiritual practice for refuge and truly practice what we have learned.

Transcript

So if you're someone who is quite stressed or worried or anxious,

You can just say,

Fearful or anxious about the coronavirus,

Then stop and ask yourself,

What specifically am I afraid of?

Don't be general,

But what specifically am I afraid of?

So if you're afraid for a loved one or a close friend,

What specifically are you afraid of happening to them?

If you're afraid of them falling ill,

Well,

That's part of samsara,

Isn't it?

And they've been ill many times before.

If you're afraid of them dying,

You know that's going to happen sometime anyway.

So if it's something that you know is going to happen sometime,

Then it's good to familiarize yourself with that idea and recognize that that too is part of samsara and that we cannot control everything.

Are you afraid for yourself?

If so,

What specifically are you afraid is going to happen to you?

If you're afraid that you're going to get sick or you're going to be in pain,

That too is part of samsara.

Have you not thought about that before in your meditation?

Is that a completely new idea?

And if you are afraid that you're going to die,

Then isn't that fear useful for your practice to get you to really practice and take the dharma to heart?

Have you meditated on death before and thought about your own death and made peace with it?

If you're afraid of dying because of this virus,

Then you need to do some meditation to work on that.

Are you afraid that the world is going to fall apart or society will fall apart?

What other things are you fearful of happening because of the virus?

Economy crashing?

What are the specific things that you fear?

What are the specific things that you fear?

If we're afraid that there's just going to be chaos and everything's going to be turned upside down,

We've all heard the teachings on mind training.

We've all heard how to transform adversity into the path.

Have we practiced those teachings?

Are they firm in our minds so that we can use them?

If they are,

Then there's no reason to fear.

If they aren't,

Then we have some time now and we should become familiar with those teachings.

Think about your life.

Think about your life and how fortunate you've been to have encountered the Dharma.

You've done purification practice.

You've accumulated merit.

You've heard a lot of teachings and planted the seeds of the Dharma in your mind stream.

Does that bring you a certain sense of satisfaction and joy?

That you've led a life with meaning,

With purpose?

That you're closer to awakening now than you were at the beginning of this lifetime?

Try to rejoice at whatever you've done in this life and then aspire to carry on with it in future lives,

Especially to overcome the self-centered mind,

The self-grasping,

To attain full awakening so we can be of great benefit to sentient beings.

However long that takes us to do,

That's fine.

But have a feeling of you've done something really useful this life and be satisfied.

So don't let your mind go in its old habits.

This is the time to practice.

Reviews

Ven. Chodron's wisdom snapped me out of my fearful mind states. Thank you, Venerable

Thank you for the wonderful reminders!

So very, very good 👍

wow, was like we were having a conversation. she is good! gave me a lot to reflect and work on. thank you

Thank you very much.🙏

Insightful - powerful

Lovely, thank you 🙏

As usual Ven. Chodron made me think of a few things that hadn't occurred to me. It was a good meditation.

Good tough-love pep talk to keep the practice going! 🙏

Venerable thubten ,thank you for this beautiful and straightforward meditation,this has helped me to practice on samsara and impermanence. Thank you very much 🙏 you’re friend Rudy in Los Angeles

Thank you I needed the reminder. 🙏🏻🌺

Wonderful. Thank you

“Don’t let your mind go into old habits, this is the time to practice.” Thank you for the reminder. 🙏🏼

Thank you so much from South Africa, 1 hour before lockdown.

Really thoughtful & honest. My gratitude is great ❤️

Just what I needed. Thank you for this meditation.

Thank you for this meditation!....🙏🏻🌷🌟

Grounding and comforting in these uncertain times. Thank you for reminding us of the teachings of the Dharma. Love to all.