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Experts are telling us that Covid-19 will continue to challenge us for at least another year. Vaccines will eventually give us relief, but it is going to take several months for everyone to be vaccinated. Meanwhile, we’ll still need to wear our masks and keep our distance, people will continue to get sick and many will die. There will also be continued suffering from loss of loved ones as well as economic hardship and stressful work and childcare conditions. I don’t say any of this to depress you. I say it, because the best way to cope with the challenges of this pandemic are to face them head on - and I want to explain how mindfulness can help us do just that.

Several weeks ago, I shared a poem with Mindful15 Members during our Weekly Meditation Practice. And, to those members, I apologize for the repeat content, but this poem is highly relevant to our current topic. It’s called The Little Duck and it was written by Donald Babcock and  published in the New Yorker magazine in 1947.

Now we are ready to look at something pretty special. It is a duck riding the ocean a hundred feet beyond the surf.

No, it isn’t a gull. A gull always has a raucous touch about him.

This is some sort of duck, and he cuddles in the swells. He isn’t cold, and he is thinking things over.

There is a big heaving in the Atlantic, And he is part of it.

He looks a bit like a mandarin, or the Lord Buddha meditating under the Bo tree. But he has hardly enough above the eyes to be a philosopher.

He has poise, however, which is what philosophers must have. He can rest while the Atlantic heaves, because he rests in the Atlantic.

Probably he doesn’t know how large the ocean is. And neither do you. But he realizes it.

And what does he do, I ask you. He sits down in it. He reposes in the immediate as if it were infinity—which it is.

That is religion, and the duck has it. He has made himself a part of the boundless, by easing himself into it just where it touches him.

 

The imagery in this poem aptly depicts how we can use mindfulness to manage difficulties of all sorts. Like the duck, when challenges arise, we sit down in them. We accept our situation by simply acknowledging the reality of it. This doesn’t mean we enjoy it, like it, agree with it, or allow it to continue without doing what is reasonable to change it. It means we acknowledge its existence, we let go of our reactions to it, and we become at ease with it.

The duck doesn’t sit in the roiling ocean thinking “oh no, that wave it so large, what if it swamps me,” or “it’s not fair,” or “when is this ever going to end, I can’t stand it anymore.” The duck just settles in and rides the waves.

You, too, can ride the Covid wave. It does you no good to ignore the pandemic, because doing so increases your risk. It also does no good to get lost in fear and worry, constantly ruminating about awful things that might happen. They might happen; they might not. Worry is absolutely useless. Worse yet, let worry consume you and it can paralyze you, keep you from taking action to help yourself.

What’s most effective is to acknowledge the reality of the situation: There is a chance that you or your loved ones could get sick, and a chance that you could inadvertently infect other people. In the face of this reality, if you apply mindfulness and compassion, your actions are clear: You follow current guidelines laid out by experts. As of the recording of this podcast, experts recommend you stay home as much as you are able to, you wear a mask when outside the home,