Moving Through The Coronavirus Crisis With Nobility

Hey guys,

Welcome to episode number 59 of the Be Ultimate podcast,

Moving through the coronavirus crisis with nobility.

So in my home state of California,

Where I'm from right now,

We're on lockdown.

And of course,

This has happened in many other states now,

Many other countries across the world.

And these are truly historic and unprecedented times.

I had a baby about two months ago.

So the good thing is,

Is I've gotten to spend a lot of time with my beautiful wife,

Lauren,

And our newborn,

Willa.

And obviously just spending a lot of time indoors,

Trying to find the balance of being aware of what's going on in the news,

And at the same time,

Really making the most of this global retreat that we're all going through.

So I felt inspired in this week's podcast to really address the challenges of what we're all feeling and what we're all moving through.

And at the same time,

That these teachings that come from the wisdom,

Traditions,

Yoga,

Meditation,

And mindfulness,

They offer tremendous tools to help us navigate these times in history where truly we face adversity.

And just like we face adversity on our yoga mat and yoga pose,

Or we face a challenge and a difficulty in our life,

You know that we're all facing this on a global collective level.

The scale of this is historic.

It's huge.

I've never seen anything like this.

At least in my lifetime.

I also want to thank everybody that is on the front lines.

You know,

The doctors,

The nurses,

The health care providers,

The people in the grocery store stocking the shelves,

The garbage collectors that continue to collect the garbage.

I don't know that I want to thank the parking people that are still going around giving out parking tickets,

But seriously,

Everybody on the front lines that is in this precarious position where they're trying to be of service and at the same time they're putting themselves and therefore their family and their loved ones at risk,

That these are truly the heroes of our time.

So thank you.

I also want to send out prayers and well wishes and good vibes to everyone that's been a fan of this program.

I want to send out prayers and good vibes to everyone that's been affected,

Whether it's being sick or a loved one getting sick,

Maybe somebody that you know in your community that's maybe even lost their life,

People that have lost their jobs,

All of you out there that are stressed out about paying your bills.

I just want you to know that I'm sending out prayers and good vibes to everyone that's been affected.

So you can feel it in the air,

The interconnectedness of all of humanity and how this coronavirus,

It doesn't discriminate,

It doesn't care about your nationality or your skin color,

How much money you have in the bank.

This virus is potentially impacting you.

There was a Sufi master that was instructing his students to do these spiritual practices at the first sign of light the following day.

Students woke up the following day,

They were about to go do their practices and then they realized they were a little bit unclear as to what their teacher meant when he said at the first sign of light.

So they went back to go see their instructor and they asked,

How do we know that we've seen the light?

Is it when we can look out over the valley and we can tell the difference between an oak tree and an olive tree?

Is this how we know that we've seen the light?

The teacher shook his head no.

He said,

Well is it when we can tell the difference between a dog and a sheep,

Is this how we know that we've seen the light?

Again the master shook his head no.

He said,

Well is it that moment when the sun is just rising above the horizon and that first ray of light begins to spill out across the valley,

Is this how we know that we've seen the light?

And the master again shook his head no and he went on to explain,

You'll know that you've seen the light when a stranger walks up to you,

You look into their eyes and you realize that the spirit that exists inside of them is the same spirit that exists inside of you.

This is how you've known that you've seen the light and until then you're living in darkness.

So we're all in this together on a deeper level.

We're all connected.

We're all interrelated and when we move through a crisis like this we can feel that.

We can really feel how we're all one and we feel the suffering of others.

We feel that the challenges that other people are going through,

That we're going through,

The difficulties that other people are facing,

We're also going through this and the magnitude of a crisis is so impactful,

So difficult,

And so challenging but within that challenge really becomes these incredible opportunities for transformation and awakening.

Anytime something unprecedented happens it causes tremendous fear and panic.

A lot of us we don't do well when our feet aren't on solid ground.

When we're in the midst of uncertainty what do we start to do?

We start to freak out.

We start to panic and you've seen this.

You've seen this maybe firsthand and you've seen it on the news.

People hoarding food,

You know going to get all the toilet paper and sadly even all the people rushing out to get guns.

You know that the guns have exploded and sales because of this crisis and that's because anytime we face a stressor it activates the alarm system in the brain called the amygdala and this sends out panic through the brain.

We go into fight,

Flight,

Or freeze and when we go into fight,

Flight,

Or freeze when we become stressed out and we go into survival mode what happens is we start to go into separation.

We start to go into disconnection when the reality is we're all in this together.

We're all connected and we have to be and we have to be very very mindful and present as to what are the qualities that we're carrying within our hearts and within our mind because we have something called emotional contagion and emotional contagion is kind of like how it sounds.

Emotions are contagious.

If you're stressed out,

If you're in fear and panic then what are you doing?

You're spreading those negative malevolent emotions throughout your community,

Throughout your household.

So one of the most powerful things that we can do is is we can use our practice and many of you have been practicing for years and years.

We can use our practice now to step up to rise the occasion to bring the mind back to a state of calmness,

To bring the heart back to a state of openness and compassion,

To bring the nervous system back into a state of balance instead of being in stress being in a place of calmness and centeredness and connectedness.

I had a student that recently went to the grocery store and she wrote the following,

This morning at 8 a.

M.

I headed to my local grocery store for my weekly shopping.

They open at that time so normally I'm one of the first ones there.

Everyone around the globe knows of the pandemic occurring.

As I pulled up to the store over 100 people were already in line to get to the store.

By 8 20 a.

M.

Toilet paper and chicken were cleaned out completely.

The store was mass chaos.

People were rushing,

Were angry,

Were tense.

It was awful.

But I chose not to be a part of that.

Instead I let people ahead of me.

I smiled at them and I said we're all going to be okay.

I made polite conversation,

Helped some elderly people get some groceries off the top shelf,

As I was ready to check out we were put back in line and the line went all the way around the perimeter of the store.

People were irritated but I said to the lady behind me there's no sense of being angry and cutting people off.

We're all here for the same reason.

She smiled and said you're right.

Then the next few people started talking and laughing and all of a sudden all the tension was gone.

We thanked the workers as they were doing a phenomenal job of controlling the crowd.

At one point sweet Caroline came over the speakers and you guessed it we all started singing.

And I love this story because it's so so true.

Had she had gone there and contributed to the chaos,

To the stress,

To the stress it would have only intensified it.

But just as one person had an impact through that emotional contagion within all the people around her.

So as yogis and meditators this is the very moment that you've been training for.

This is why you've been doing all those down dogs.

This is why you've been sitting on your meditation cushion and watching your breath and observing your sensation and noting your thoughts and your emotions.

This is why you've been doing all that.

Andrew Jackson said one person with courage is a majority.

Or as Thich Nhat Khan,

The great Vietnamese and master writes when the crowded Vietnamese refugee boats met with storms or pirates if everyone panicked all would be lost.

But even if one person on the boat remained calm and centered it was enough.

It showed the way for everyone to survive.

So now now it's our job to be that one person in the boat.

You may see people around you freaking out.

You may go to the grocery store.

You may see people slipping into panic.

But just a simple smile or a glance of compassion,

A look of kindness on the face can have so much impact on transforming the world around you because of the world that's happening inside of you based off of your practices and your training.

So it's our job to be that one person in the boat.

You may see people around you who are not just looking for a job.

You may see people who are looking for a job to remain steady,

Equanimous and calm so that we're spreading courage instead of fear.

Now naturally we're gonna feel the fear.

I've certainly felt quite a bit of it.

Fear's come up.

Stress has come up.

There's been those moments where I too wanted to go grab a grocery cart full of toilet paper and I'm feeling alright.

I feel like I see the fear and the fear's arising.

I see that coming up.

But then wisdom takes over and I don't become overly-identified with the stress and the fear because of the ability to step out of that to no longer identify with that and to simply see it.

Thank you fear,

I know that you're trying to protect me.

Thank you panic,

I know this is wired into my physiology and yet this isn't the only option of how I can move through life.

So with everything being shut down right now and so many of us going through these forest retreats,

Things coming to a grinding halt,

This is the perfect time to deepen your practice.

It's also the perfect time to deepen your relationships with the people that you share a home with,

The people that exist in your community.

And I think about one of my students who is an inmate in a maximum security prison.

And at one point while he was incarcerated,

He was thrown into solitary confinement due to violent and bad behavior.

And they put one of my 108 day yoga programs inside of his cell on this computer screen and he started to do the program.

And he wrote me a letter and he shared this really moving,

Magnificent story about how his jail cell completely transformed as if it was a cave deep in the Himalayan mountains.

He turned his cell into a place where he could really take refuge within his practice.

And he proceeded to move through those 108 days,

Doing yoga,

Doing meditation,

And ultimately it completely transformed his body,

His mind,

His heart,

And started to transform the prison around him.

The guards were shocked at this inmate and had completely done a 360 turnaround.

And he took what could have been a really,

Really,

Really,

Really difficult,

Challenging experience and he spun it into something that became an incredible opportunity for growth and awakening.

So in our practice,

We begin to access the timeless dimension that is beyond the body,

The thoughts,

The emotions.

What's sometimes called the loving awareness dimension.

And loving awareness is the vast ocean.

It's the infinite ocean.

And contained within that ocean are waves.

The coronavirus that's sweeping across the world right now,

It is a wave.

It's a big wave.

It's a tsunami-like wave.

But it's not the ocean.

It's not the be-all,

End-all.

The panic,

The fear,

The stress,

The worry,

The negativity that comes up within the coronavirus are the secondary waves or the ripples caused by the main wave of the coronavirus,

And those,

Too,

Are not the entire ocean.

So this recognition that who you are on a deeper level is much bigger and much greater than this temporary and permanent crisis that we're going through.

And sometimes that understanding can bring you some peace to have the wisdom that this,

Too,

Shall pass.

There was a king that was on this rollercoaster ride of emotions,

And this king had all the gold and all the wealth and all the physical abundance that he could ever want,

But yet he still was unhappy.

He still felt like he was empty and lacking.

He heard about this wise master out in the forest,

And he summoned his guards to bring the master to come see him.

And he begged of the master.

He said,

I want you to show me how to become whole,

To become happy,

To become peaceful.

And the spiritual master said,

Give me two weeks.

I'll come back,

And I'll show you the way.

Two weeks had passed.

The master came back to see the king.

The king was ready to offer up all the gold for the teachings that the master was about to give him.

But humbly,

The master declined.

He opened up a box that he held in his hand.

He pulled out a ring,

And he asked the king to look at the inscription on the underside of the golden ring.

And he said,

Whatever you see there,

I want you to repeat that any time that you face something where you get very,

Very excited or any time something that you get very,

Very upset about.

Through the 10,

000 joys and the 10,

000 sorrows,

I want you to come back to that phrase.

The king looked down at the ring,

And the phrase read,

This too shall pass.

The king did as he was instructed,

And he went on to become a happy,

Joyful,

Peaceful king.

And the kind of joy that isn't temporary,

Because it's rooted and it's connected within that dimension of the loving awareness,

You see,

That is permanent.

It is the ocean that lasts that is eternal and infinite.

So there's a saying in India that says,

No mud,

No lotus.

And what this means is that you can't have this beautiful,

Magnificent flower without the mud.

The mud is the difficulty.

It's the crisis.

It's the challenge.

But out of that challenge,

Out of that mud,

Always,

Always comes immeasurable opportunity for tremendous beauty and grace and magnificence.

So this time right now,

We have to have the perspective that it is a tremendous opportunity for both individual and collective awakening.

And that the word crisis in the Chinese character,

It's made of two characters.

One character means danger,

And the other character means opportunity.

Crisis,

Opportunity,

Mud,

And lotus.

So a person with wisdom,

They don't ask,

Why is this happening to me?

They ask the question,

Why is this happening for me?

You see,

You're only as good as the questions that you ask.

And when you ask that question,

Why is this happening to me,

You go into victim consciousness.

Adversely,

When you ask the question,

Why is this happening for me,

You go into something called empowered consciousness.

And in empowered consciousness,

You start to focus on the solution instead of the problem.

Viktor Frankl,

Who survived but lost his entire family in the Nazi concentration camps,

He endured just immeasurable suffering.

And he shared,

We who lived in the concentration camps can remember those who walked through the huts,

Comforting others,

Giving away their last piece of bread.

They may have been few in number,

But they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from us,

But the last of human freedoms,

The freedom to choose our spirit in any circumstance.

And I think about this really moving story that I heard on the news recently,

Maybe you heard it too,

About this priest who was in his 70s and he had contracted the coronavirus.

And as he lay in his deathbed dying,

Next to him was a younger person.

And the priest courageously,

Generously,

Compassionately gave his ventilator up to the younger person and went on to lose his life.

I mean,

It's stories like this that in these moments of crisis,

In these moments of tremendous,

Tremendous,

Tremendous darkness,

That we see over and over these incredible examples of light.

And so much of the human experience is the dance between loss and gain,

Pleasure and pain,

Health and sickness,

Birth and death.

And our job as yogis,

As meditators,

As human beings that embody nobility is to move through the vicissitudes of life with a peaceful mind and a compassionate awakened heart.

If you look for it,

You'll see it.

It's everywhere.

Beauty,

Magnificent,

Again,

Can be found in the worst of times just like the priest who gave up his ventilator,

Just like the people in the concentration camps giving each other part of their bread.

You know,

You see the Italians that every evening the sun is setting or singing out songs from their balconies clamoring on pots to give songs and music of gratitude to the doctors and the healthcare workers on the front lines.

You see the teenagers that are using their phones to send songs and live music to senior citizens and nursing care facilities.

You see all the people coming together online through Zoom and YouTube and Facebook and Instagram Live.

I mean,

It is happening all around us.

And it's times like this that it really makes you appreciate all the things that you take for granted.

I mean,

When was the last time that you went to the grocery store and you were stressed out about whether there was going to be toilet paper or not?

I mean,

Or whether they were going to have pasta or rice,

You know?

We take so much for granted,

Especially in the western world.

So when you start to look right now and you open your eyes to the beauty that's happening right now,

You start to see these positive things.

You start to find the lotus within the mud.

We see how the air quality is greatly improving all around the world.

We needed that.

We needed that so desperately.

You can feel how the energy is settled,

Especially in my home city of Los Angeles.

I mean,

Usually Los Angeles has so much hustle and bustle and noise and pollution and activity.

And I've never seen it like this.

It's even more settled than it is on a big holiday like Christmas.

I see the people walking around the neighborhood and they're walking with no agenda.

They're just strolling and they might be with a family member or their child or walking their dog and people are taking their time.

They're slowing down.

It's almost like for decades we as a society have been inhaling,

Inhaling,

Inhaling,

Inhaling,

Inhaling,

Inhaling,

Inhaling,

Inhaling and this is a moment where we just,

Ah,

Where we exhale.

We needed this.

And also within this,

Within this,

This sacred pause that's reverberating throughout the globe,

People are asking is what I'm doing with my life,

Does it really matter?

When we move through crisis,

It puts things into perspective.

When I went through my near-death drowning experience in Kauai and then a near-death experience with the tsunami in Thailand in 2004,

It puts things into perspective.

It made me ask those questions,

Is what I'm doing with my life,

Does it really,

Really matter?

And those moments of crisis change my life.

So I've been taking these walks through the neighborhood and yesterday I just heard the birds singing and I stopped and I looked up.

I had my daughter in her stroller,

It was just me and my daughter,

And I just stopped.

I listened to this beautiful music that the birds were creating,

The wind was blowing,

The leaves were glistening with sunlight and the birds were looking down upon me and it was almost as if they were saying,

Man,

What's going on with these humans?

They're so chill.

Something's in the air here.

You know,

Even the animals are like something is going on.

So you can feel it and you can see it if you open your eyes and you move beyond the stress and the panic and the fear.

All things in life,

They teach us something.

You know,

In India they have that expression,

Experiences the greatest guru,

Experiences the greatest teacher.

So if we ask that question again,

Why is the coronavirus crisis happening not to us but for us?

And we do that inquiry,

Then maybe we start to answer the question.

You know,

Maybe the coronavirus is happening for us to be a reminder that in life we need to engage in practices to stay healthy,

That we need to live a lifestyle that keeps our immunity strong and resilient,

To teach us the power of slowing down,

Spending more time with our loved ones,

Appreciating the beauty of nature and looking out for each other,

Looking out for each other and not just each other as human beings but also looking out for each other,

Our relationship to nature and to animals.

You can feel that the environment really needed this time where our consumption would go down,

The factories would turn off and now the environment also gets to have the sacred pause just as we as humans and as all the animals do as well.

So in yoga and mindfulness practice,

We sit and we sweep the garden.

The sit is symbolic of your practice.

And when you practice,

As my teacher Jack Cornfield so eloquently says,

We're putting on the cloak of wisdom that provides protection.

Our practice,

It provides a protection so that in these moments when there is fear,

Where there is chaos,

Where there is stress,

Where there is panic,

Where there is disease,

Where there is sickness,

We're protected.

We're held in the medicine of the Dharma.

And after the sit,

Inevitably,

The other side of the coin is that then we sweep the garden.

Sweeping the garden is the metaphor for tending to the worldly affairs of life.

Maintaining our responsibilities.

Going to the grocery store to go get the groceries that we can.

Getting our supplies.

Doing the things that we need in our world to take care of our family,

Our loved ones,

Our friends.

That's sweeping the garden.

And when we do that,

Offering up the medicine of compassion and kindness,

Especially when we go to those grocery stores,

Especially when we go to those places,

The airports or wherever it is,

Where you see people that are slipping into that survival stress fight,

Flight mode.

Ian McLaren said,

Be kind.

Everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.

This crisis is an opportunity.

It's an incredible pattern interrupt.

One,

You want to stay engaged.

I know some people in these times,

They become hopeless.

They go into despair.

They go into freeze.

And then they can't act.

And that's an incredibly selfish thing to do.

We don't want to be selfish in these times.

We want to be selfless.

And you can ask yourself,

You know,

Right now,

How can I be of service?

How can I be helpful?

What can I do in my own small way?

Again,

Even if it's as simple as offering another person that you're walking by a smile of kindness and compassion.

Number two,

Connect with your loved ones.

Number three,

Celebrate the goodness that is present everywhere.

And if you're not seeing it,

You might not be looking deeply enough for it.

Number four,

Remember this too shall pass.

This is a wave.

Who you are on a deeper level is the ocean.

And number five,

Have faith that we will all emerge from this crisis more awakened.

We will grow from this opportunity.

And that is a beautiful,

Beautiful thing and a beautiful treasure that we carry.

I'd like to finish this podcast with a poem that's kind of gone viral called Lockdown by an Irish priest,

Brother Richard Hendrick,

Who writes,

Yes,

There is fear.

Yes,

There is isolation.

Yes,

There is panic buying.

Yes,

There is sickness.

Yes,

There is even death.

But they say that in Wuhan,

After so many years of noise,

You can hear the birds again.

They say that after just a few weeks of quiet,

The sky is no longer thick with fumes,

But blue and gray and clear.

They say that in the streets of Assisi,

People are singing to each other across the empty squares,

Keeping their windows open so that they,

Those who are alone,

May hear the sounds of family all around them.

They say that a hotel in the west of Ireland is offering free meals and delivery to the housebound.

Today,

A young woman I know is busy spreading flyers with her number through the neighborhood so that the elders may have someone to call on.

Today,

Churches,

Synagogues,

Mosques,

And temples are preparing to welcome and shelter the homeless,

The sick,

The weary.

All over the world,

People are slowing down and reflecting.

All over the world,

People are looking at their neighbors in a new way.

All over the world,

People are waking up to a new reality,

To how big we really are,

To how little control we have,

To what really matters,

To love.

So we pray and we remember that,

Yes,

There is fear,

But there does not have to be hate.

Yes,

There is isolation,

But there does not have to be loneliness.

Yes,

There is panic buying,

But there does not have to be meanness.

Yes,

There is sickness,

But there does not have to be the disease of the soul.

Yes,

There is even death,

But there can always be a rebirth of love.

Wait till the choices you make as to how to live now.

Today,

Breathe.

Listen behind the factoring noises of your panic.

The birds are singing again.

The sky is clearing.

Spring is coming.

And we are always encompassed by love.

Open the windows of your soul.

And though you may not be able to touch across the empty square,

Sing.

All right,

Let's finish with the ultimate prayer.

May we bring strength where there is weakness.

May we bring courage where there is fear.

May we bring compassion where there is suffering.

And may we bring light where there is darkness.

May we be ultimate.