Many of us have to stay at home these days, or are restricted in where we can go. How can we best use these times of isolation? How do we prepare ourselves inwardly for a future that is becoming increasingly uncertain?
Now, more than ever, our spiritual practice becomes essential. We can use this time to step back from our worries and concerns, and draw on the clarity and wisdom that lie in the stillness of our being.
We'll need to be flexible, to let go of outdated thinking, habitual reactions, and assumptions as to how to respond, to find the inner freedom to see things with fresh eyes. At the same time we need to remain rooted in the ground of our being, so that we can stay cool, calm, and collected in the midst of whatever changes may come.
Being Here Now becomes ever more important. We have the opportunity to step back from our conditioned sense of self and return to our true nature—to the inner home we never really left. And there discover for ourselves the spiritual wisdom in the zen teaching: Nothing to do. Nowhere to go. No one to be.
In this interview, Peter answers Zaya's questions:
• What are your reflections for this time?
• “Nowhere to go” — what do you mean by that?
• How can this help our spiritual maturation?
• How to recognize when we are caught up in our thinking mind?
• What practices can help us?
• What is wisdom?
• How can we access our own inner wisdom?
• What is the wisdom of this time?
• How to be with grief as we are losing loved one, our habitual ways of being, doing life, relating?
• How does this crisis fit in the current state of our planet?
• As we become aware of humanity's impact, we can get caught in judging and blaming. What is the role of forgiveness?