One of the things physicians do to get a general sense of the health of the heart is a cardiac stress test. Now here we are in the third month of this global pandemic, social distancing and lockdown, that’s a stress test for a different kind of heart.

This past week I listened to a talk of Ajhan Munindo’s*, and he was talking about the different approaches to practice, different approaches to worldview or self-view. And I thought it was particularly interesting and worthy of ongoing reflection.

Dukkha (suffering) is not a permanent condition. The Buddha makes it very clear in The Four Nobel Truths, which he structures along the principles of ancient Ayurvedic medicine. There is an illness, a disease. One has to find the cause. Can one be free from that illness?

It’s been another week in quarantine, of sheltering in place. It’s kind of like the movie Groundhog Day: waking up and it's the same day; it’s the same thing; it’s the same old life all over again — not going anywhere.

In a short dialogue between a deva and the Buddha; the young deva asks: ‘Always anxious is this mind, the mind is always agitated with unarisen problems and about arisen ones. If there exists release from fear being asked, please declare it to me.’

Right now, the normal avenues of social contact and engagement for many people are closed. This can weigh on people. But a helpful question for anyone who is cultivating a spiritual life is: What are the things that are uncomfortable about having extended periods of solitude or extended periods of less social contact?

“Whether liking or disliking arise just see them all as uncertain. This is how to get close to the Buddha, to get close to the Dhamma.” (Ajahn Chah)

How can we cultivate the quality of steadfastness so that when we do experience difficulty and adversity, we have a certain stability, clarity and firmness that is easily adaptable to circumstance?

They are certainly drawbacks to having a global pandemic, but is it all doom and gloom and complete misery?