Yesterday morning my husband and I went out early to hike at Radnor Lake, a nearby, very popular nature preserve. We thought if we arrived before 6:30 we would have the place mostly to ourselves. But when we arrived the parking lot was already half full. We shifted to a backup plan, a nearby park that is much less well known than Radnor Lake. We pulled in to an empty parking lot and enjoyed brisk walk on the park loop, seeing only one other person the entire time we were there. I deeply appreciated being immersed in nature as the sun rose over the trees and cast long, golden shadows across the fields. For a while, life felt normal and unhindered by a global pandemic encroaching ever more deeply on our city. Immersed in a moment of beauty on a brisk morning, my heart was full of gratitude, joy and presence.
On our drive home during what is normally the morning rush hour, we saw few cars on the main arteries. I felt a pervading sense of stillness as the engines of our economy have come to a near halt and the pressures to produce have, to some extent, been lifted. Inside I felt the waves of activity and doership fully paused and my heart at peace. It struck me how our perceptions of activity and movement, the worldly winds, are like a phantom and a dream, largely created by the mind and fulfilled by restlessness, desire and greed. This deep pause refreshed of my heart and mind at a level I normally access during deep meditation or while on retreat and removed from everyday life.
To be clear, many people do not have this privilege. Many must report to work outside their homes no matter what and my heart breaks for those who must be in harm’s way. On a less dire level, this slowdown is affecting my livelihood and, like most, my retirement account has been crushed. Yet in these moments of stillness and presence all is well no matter what else may be true at a relative level. This is the peace that is always here but too often obscured when our minds look outward to seek fulfillment through busyness, consumption, or greed.
Our wise hearts have the capacity to pause and find peace even during a time of great upheaval. The environment is also resting, pollution is down along with global travel and other forms of consumption. What is stark to me are the extremes of this continuum: an economy that can’t or won’t wake up to the realty of climate change on one end and a global pandemic on the other that shuts everything down and thus, the earth comes to rest for a while. We humans have not yet found a middle way and it is unclear if we will. So for now we can begin with our own hearts and minds, coming to rest when we can and allowing ourselves to retreat.
During a recent talk, Jack Kornfield spoke of leading a zoom conference for a large group people in China who were on lockdown. He explained to them that hundreds of people at Spirit Rock Meditation Center paid a lot of money to be on retreat, while they were on retreat in their homes for free. He encouraged them to take the opportunity while they could.
Many of us have this same opportunity right now, to slow down for a while, to retreat right where we are and find this stillness, for ourselves and for those around us. As Jack recently said, “This is the time to steady yourself – and it affects everyone else.”
This opportunity won’t come again in just this way, so please join me if you can and allow this time to be one of returning, not just to your physical home, but this home of your body, your breath and the great awareness that holds you in times of stillness and movement, stress and release, sorrow and joy. As Martin Luther King said long ago, “Be the peace you want to see in the world.” Now is the time.
May we all be safe and well, may we be held in compassion and filled with lovingkindess. May we find peace.
