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The Zen of COVID-19: Why This Is Our Chance To Master Mindfulness & Come Fully Alive
For all the pain it’s bringing, the coronavirus pandemic has a silver lining. Mass disruption of everyday life has opened the eyes of millions to its small miracles — paving the way for an ancient approach to living to find its moment.
This is why — and how we can all tune in.
1. A (very) brief history
The Aztec empire was at its peak. Rome had fallen. As Attila the Hun made his way west and King Arthur’s Britons fended off the Saxons, Europe slumped into its Dark Ages.
On the other side of the planet, meanwhile, an obscure group of monks in northern China decided to put a fresh spin on the religion their predecessors had imported from India centuries earlier — in the process inventing what was to become one of humanity’s pre-eminent approaches to life, fulfillment and happiness.
The year was 500 A.D., give or take. Steeped in Taoism — a philosophy which held that the greatest truths lay beyond the reach of human language — the monks had come to see Buddhism’s most powerful teaching as not a religious doctrine, but one…
