Blessings and Advice
"Guru Vajradhara Chamgon Kenting Tai Situpa's response to a request for blessings and advice in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic. “Namo Buddha Shakyamuni.I was requested by Palpung Slovenia and Palpung Italy to share my heartfelt thoughts and prayers related to covid-19. In fact, right after the outbreak of the virus in Wuhan and its spread to quite a few countries, my sincere thoughts and prayers were shared. Now, I wanted to respond to this request from my heart. There are so many factors in endeavours like this. I want to make it brief, so I will share three factors. First, as a Buddhist, the Buddha teaches us that there are so many things happening in the universe, but they are all interconnected. There is nothing that is not interconnected. Therefore, so many things happened without being noticed by humanity and were then gone. So many things happened with the full notice of humanity, in which some are gone and some are still going on. The present virus crisis is one of these which is happening and that we all know is happening. This is very important for us to know. This is not something extraordinary, as if something that never happened before is happening to us now —it is not. Many things like this have happened, and this is happening now, and we have to take it very, very seriously, of course. And communities, authorities, governments, and international bodies are all taking extreme care and are making an effort. Now, what we can do as individuals are these three things: First, each and every one of us — over seven billion human beings — we have to take care of ourselves regarding this to keep from getting the virus. If we already have the virus, then we have to make sure we do not spread the virus to anybody. And there is another category among us, the very young ones and the very old ones, that we adults have to take care of, and we have to make sure they do not get sick. If they get sick, we take care of them and make sure that they do not spread it. This is the first thing. The second thing is to never give up. Never give up in the sense that, “I am not sick, and I am not going to get sick.” No, anybody can get sick! Therefore, do not give up like that. Do not give up your vigilance. In a most gentle and thoughtful way, have compassion for all living beings and, in this case, particularly for human beings. Those who are sick — have compassion for them. Do whatever you can for them. And those who have died — we have compassion for them. We do whatever prayers and anything else that we can do for them. Those who lost their loved ones — they need support. We support them wholeheartedly, in whichever way we can, by praying or in whatever way possible. And then, the doctors and nurses are working so hard, besides all the support groups. So, support them, appreciate them and care for them. Have compassion for them. Have respect for them. Have appreciation for them, and encourage them. If you can do something, do it by yourself. And now the third thing — it can never be the last thing, as there are so many things but, as I told you, I am making it three points here, just to make it short. The third thing is to respect this disease. How? There is no border, there is no race, there is no religion, and there is no educational qualification and achievement that this virus will spare. So we have to respect it, and we have to protect ourselves, knowing the capacity of this virus. If we do not know and we do not respect it, we cannot protect ourselves. We cannot get well. We cannot protect others. So, in this way, these three very simple things are the advice from my heart”.
"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible" H.H Dalai Lama