THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS

We have packaged and shaped and reshaped our thoughts and beliefs, and constantly reorganized them, to make us feel safe during changing conditions, in order to blunt reality.

We choose to live in a blocked off reality, where we are safe and 'the I' is the center of the universe.

 

In times of crisis we turn to others for solace, to tell us ‘everything will be all-right’; when in reality, everything is not going to be all-right.   We attend churches and follow charismatic leaders and prescribe to different philosophies to make us feel better.  In desperation, we make prayers to a God that allows thirty thousand children to die of starvation every day, and allows parasitic worms to bore into the eyes of children and blind them for life; and we reason that this God will protect us from harm.

 We are grasping and trying to hold on to things as they were or as we wish them to be.

Wake up! Is a Zen command.    It is what it is, is the meaning.


Zen is not about some pie-in-the-sky nirvana.   It is the basis of many martial arts disciplines.   It is about accepting reality and making the best of every situation, while trying to keep a positive attitude.

Like wolves, we circle to protect our pack.   This is not a bad thing when dealing with danger.

  

Rather than thoughts and prayers, our best protection is to live in the NOW; accepting reality and making preparations to meet each crisis. We should be aggressively controlling the things that are within our power to control and accepting those things we can not control.

Thoughts and prayers are not a positive attitude.  They are a hindrance to accepting reality, and lead to a false sense of security in dangerous times.   Prayers go into space: where no one can here you scream.

the Ol’Buzzard