Facing a Covid lockdown, let’s look after our minds and connect with the people around us

COVID-19 is simultaneously driving us apart and pushing us together. Self-isolating, social distancing, and the lockdown that’s happening in countries ahead of us on the epidemiology curve are all forcing people to withdraw from each other. 

Then there’s the isolating effect of worry and stress. We draw inwards when we’re threatened – my tummy tightens, my chest contracts, my thoughts spiral. And our reptile brains seek to protect us by fighting, flying or grabbing the last packet of dried pasta.

At the same time, we’re in this situation together. Sickness is always with us, but it usually afflicts us individually, and the ripples may reach no further than our families. This virus impacts everyone – the  whole species – as perhaps nothing else ever has. There’s consolation in the thought that we aren’t alone; but my experience this week has alerted me to another element in the calculus of isolation and connection. 

My son’s been at home where I’ve also been working and, like all of us, grappling with a host of challenges. We’re starting to feel cooped up, and my capacity for forbearance – which is less than Buddha-like at the best of times – has already started to crack. But if I’m tetchy after a few days, how will things be after weeks and months of being cut off from most people, but thrown together intensely with just a few?

I’m reflecting more than ever on Buddhism’s great teaching that, especially in the face of challenges, we must manage our minds. Practical difficulties require their share of our attention, but we must also address our thoughts and feelings. Like many modern psychologists, Buddhism tells us that unhelpful states of mind magnetise our attention and drag us further into our difficulties; and the best way to look after our wellbeing is to shift our focus from what we lack towards gratitude and appreciation. 

The Buddha advises that to live harmoniously with friends we should be generous towards them, sharing freely what we have; speak with kindness and affection; look after each other’s practical needs; keep our promises; and treat others as we would treat ourselves. 

We could be in for a long haul. We’ve never faced a challenge like this in peacetime and, as well as practical measures, we’ll need our inner resources. If we want to meet the challenge with an expansive response, I think we must start with our feelings in this moment and the people around us right now.