By Erica Mulford
What does it mean to practice? This is a question I’ve asked myself many times since first discovering Zen back in 2014. Particularly during the time of COVID, the living answer to this question has changed and shifted many times. When I reflect on my practice over the years (from 2014 until now 2020) there have been patterns which I can equate to what my practice has been like during COVID (from March until now). The span of my overall Zen practice has taken place over six years while COVID has taken place over a more condensed timeline.
The first year of discovering Zen was a time filled with starry-eyes and an excitable demeanor. The fun of the whole thing filled me, for it was a brand new world. A world in which I attended a retreat and I saw people wearing robes, wearing dark clothes, no makeup, shaved heads, eating in a simple way, a structure I had never seen before. And then there was my “practice.” An excitable practice filled with all of the hope in the world of what might be discovered, achieved, found, and experienced. Practice in those days was diving into everything I could. Books, recorded dharma talks, guided meditation, dharma talks, there was an eagerness to absorb all of it while I still could, as if those things were going somewhere.
Similarly, back in March of 2020, I remember the first day at work when we found out what we would be bringing our laptops home and probably wouldn’t come back for at least a month, two months tops—nothing to be too concerned about. It was an exciting prospect being able to work remotely in shorts, pajamas, and comfy t-shirts, cook lunch in the middle of the day rather than the night before to pack and bring to work, and to have more flexibility with work. It was exciting to think of enjoying this gift for up to two months! There were many things to do, new ways of living that I wasn’t used to, and I could do mostly whatever I wanted within the constraints of my job.
Just as I started understanding the gravity of what was at the heart of Zen a few years ago (which I later discovered to be embodying Zazen fully while living “ordinary everyday life”), I began to understand that I underestimated the consequences the virus would have on my life and those around me. I felt filled with a baseline anxiety saturating the very air I breathed, as if the whole world was feeling the same tension and fear. Life became more challenging, work was a slog, being at home all day with very minimal human interaction became isolating and painful. My practice felt quite limited: limited to my apartment, day-to-day work, phone calls with family, painful emotions circulating, and redefining self-care given the constraints of the current state of the world.
The suffering was transforming the world as we know it wildly almost in an overnight fashion, as it was doing internally within myself. Month three of COVID is when my practice changed drastically. The more I began to ask and wonder “How do I limit myself? How do I limit my practice?” the more I began to understand the significance of relaxing into a certain softness with the present circumstance, leaning into compassion, love, patience, and taking great care of myself and others regardless of what was appearing. Switching from force and exertion, to self-care and other-care in all areas of my life.
This understanding eventually became very useful when I personally contracted the Coronavirus. Suddenly, my circumstances required life to get very small. Minimal food, minimal human interaction, minimal energy. The humility that came from this was remarkable. My practice became everyday life as a sick person suffering with chronic fatigue, sleeping 16+ hours a day in total isolation for several weeks. Although life became much smaller upon the infection, it delivered many lessons.
Finally, I began to understand over the years that my Zen practice had to be the same as my “life”— there could be no boundary where my practice ended and where it began. This realization dawned on a smaller level while I was recovering from the Coronavirus. What does practicing with COVID mean? Practicing with COVID meant listening to my body, sleeping as much as I needed, taking time off work, humbly asking people to help me with groceries or medicine, taking it slow, processing the emotions that were coming up during this time, and respecting my limitations.
Practicing with COVID eventually taught me how to soften into all aspects of my experience with an open heart. To love oneself is to care for oneself, to love another is to care for another, to speak truthfully and honestly, to ask for help, to meet myself exactly where I was. COVID still continues to unfold and encourages the expansion of everyone’s practice in the world while we face unique challenges and deepening levels of connection and community. With a full heart and an open mind, leaning into the pain and sickness with a softness, we can practice with all areas of our lives and learn how to relate to our lives with a quality of care.