What is Coronavirus Doing For Us
by Gary Horvitz
March 31, 2020
So much of what we hear and see is focused on what the virus is doing to us.
Here are some things the virus is doing for us:
1. We are being reminded, regardless of habits, attitude, outlook or inclination, of the true nature of our relations with each other. Underneath the isolation, alienation and self-oriented pursuit of individual survival and satisfaction in this life, we are deeply connected with each other. We are the same in the process of living with identical personal imperatives. We are being awakened from a mass self-induced amnesia.
2. The virus is igniting awareness of the nature of mind itself, the unity, spontaneity and clarity of our true nature. This is not some subtle philosophical undercurrent. This is a tsunami of awakening in the face of a species crisis. Our impulse for connection, inclusivity, compassion, equality and treating each other as intimates on the same journey are all evidence of the nature of mind we share.
3. Another impulse we have is to reweave the human mandala, to break through the barriers that have grown up like so many strangling weeds, obstructing our movement, restricting our permeability, restraining and contaminating our selfless impulses, keeping our distances and ignoring the obvious suffering all around us. Reweaving the human mandala is required to recover and materialize the true depth of our interdependence.
4. We are being reacquainted with the inevitability of death. We are receiving a lesson in impermanence, as if we had forgotten, pushed that awareness out of mind or simply denied the full truth of it. We are being reacquainted with the nature of Nature, calling us to examine how the human corruption of the biosphere is connected to our denial of death. The presence of death is not only a reminder of the inevitability of our own death, but the death of a way of life, the death of a certain view of existence that overlooks or denies all of the above.
5. Against the backdrop of resting in the nature of mind, the inclusive, compassionate and awakened reality, we are being moved to action to reconnect, to enable, to reaffirm, to witness and give voice to our values.
This is the new world, the coming world, the last world and the last hope. We are being given a chance to recover, even as we bury those who are giving their lives, unwillingly, unexpectedly, fearfully, perhaps even fiercely and lovingly, to their last breath, that we might awaken.