Corona lifts the rock

When you lift a rock on an ant colony, there is momentary chaos, but soon the whole colony as an organism moves on. Corona has lifted the rock over our civilization of interconnected networks, and there is momentary panic, but we can see the ants creating a new social network, a new way of relating, a new colony that we could not imagine before Corona.

While we have played out this faith that there is a basic intelligence, creative intelligence in us politically by polarizing society into good and bad halves, Corona lifts the rock on political polarization itself.

We can no longer take refuge in our political and religious viewpoints that define our view as being the truth and other views as being not true. Corona comes to destroy the bipolar world that pits itself against itself. Corona unifies us against a common enemy, and that activates our basic goodness, our basic creative intelligence that has been held hostage and put to sleep by our polarization, by the mythos of duality, of survival of the fittest and the myth of the Chosen People.

Corona is a bartender who is breaking everything up and shaking it together. It is us to each of us to pour out a martini, a new tale, a new story, a new way of being.

When everything is held together in a mutually dependent economy and reality, we don’t have to create new systems all at once. We week the ones we have, but the quilt stays together.

But Corona is shaking everything up. This is Zen, basically. Zen is kicking away the crutches a blind man depends on, turning him around and knocking him down, so he has no idea where he is. When what we depend upon is removed, we experience a death, and we go through the stage of grief. But in the end, we come to renewal when we discover that denial, anger, and despair will not save us. We must invent our way out.

The obelisk in Space Oddysey: 2001 was a metaphor for Not KNowing. The obelisk had no reference to the known, the past and memory. When it appeared, evolution happened. Creative intelligence makes the unknown known, creates a new reality to hold the new unknown.

Corona comes like the Obelisk to activate evolution. Empty of known names and forms and all references to the past, Corona forces us to evolve our consciousness, both collective and individual. They are two sides of the same coin of consciousness.

There is consciousness that takes refuge in the Known, and there is creative intelligence that is awakened when confronted with the Unknown.

Corona is interesting because we don’t know what to do about it other than doing nothing. Stay home. Do nothing. This goes against the stream of our experience which is “don’t just sit there, DO SOMETHING. But now all we can do to defeat Corona is do nothing. Doing something, running around, working together spreads the Corona. Ironic.

Zen Buddhism is the science of doing nothing. This is also the Zen Koan MU! No matter what I think the answer is: MU! Not KNowing creates the conditions for Knowing, the act of Knowing, the aroused mind that does not rest on the known names and forms.

Not Knowing activates the evolution of your creative intelligence. Surrender first, then act. Knowing that is action fills the emptiness of Not Knowing.

You can practice this yourself to see if it’s true. When you are caught in a double-bind where nothing you can do gets you out of the fix; STop, open your full awareness and ask the question: What’s the truth here?

Is this opinion, this fear, this panic, this doubt, the depression real. Is it true?

Corona makes what was negative positive. Germaphobes are now our front line. Aloof people who cannot touch others are now our models.

The Tantra of Corona is to meet Corona and the conditions it has created as if you choose it. This does not mean you chose it like you choose a chocolate ice cream. No, you choose it because you have to option but to choose it. You go to Corona as Jesus went to the Cross, in joyful participation. You participate with Corona; you don’t resist it, complain about it, cry about it, deny it…no…you accept it because there is no choice. If you don’t, then you exhaust your energy resisting something that resistance cannot change, and that destroys your immune system and make you more vulnerable to the complications of the virus.

Tantra is finding wisdom in the negative because there is no wisdom in fighting the negative. The negative and positive are ambiguous. They come together like the Up and Down of an elevator. You cannot only go UP. The Down defines the UP and the Up defines the down. What we really choose when we go to the elevator is the Elevator, the ONE that is two.

Corona is like that: Corona is both good/bad; up/down; Corona has no preferences, so in meeting Corona we cannot have preferences either. I know, we always prefer the good and resist the bad. But Corona doesn’t care. Corona is LIFE. (metaphor)

So we are reaching Situation Corona: Where can you go that Corona is not. Where can you go that Life is not? We may hideaway in a castle, but walls do not work with Corona. We have to assume everyone we meet has Corona.

When we used to hug and touch and feel bad if we didn’t, now we must not hug and touch and feel better because we didn’t. In this way, Corona makes us discover our essential nature, which is not conditioned behavior. Where we didn’t wash, now we wash. Where we used to shop, now we don’t. Where we used to be on auto-pilot, now we have to be mindful of what our hands are touching.

While Corona may destroy our old habits and certainties, Corona is creating great mindfulness, consciousness, and awakening of our basic creative nature.