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FEATURE | EASTERN HORIZON 23

You will see the benefit of
Overlooking
the practice more clearly and
understand what you have
learned at deeper levels. All
official responses:
this will further increase your
confidence.
Thai Buddhist
Never get discouraged when
you lose awareness. Every time
awareness, be happy. The fact that institutions and
you recognize that you have lost

you have recognized that you lost
Covid-19
awareness means that you are now
aware. Just keep looking at this

process of losing and regaining
By Dr Thomas Borchert
awareness and learn from it.

Professor Borchert specializes in
Life is a reflection of the quality
the religions of East and Southeast
of the mind. If you really
understand the mind, you Asia. His area of research includes
understand the world. You gain Theravada Buddhist traditions of
this understanding by observing mainland Southeast Asia and the
and learning. You don’t need minorities of China. Other research
to believe anything you don’t interests include religion and politics,
intellectually understand. Just monastic education, transnational
keep investigating. Just keep
Buddhist networks and the legal
learning from your personal systems that govern religious actors in Asia (both religious and
experience. EH
secular). He received a Ph.D. (2006) in the History of Religions from
the University of Chicago and a B.A. (1992) from Swarthmore College.
He is the author of Educating Monks: Minority Buddhism on China’s
Southwest Border (University of Hawai’i Press, 2017), and is the editor
of Theravada Buddhism in Colonial Contexts (Routledge 2018).

In the last several months, stories have emerged about the ways that
Covid-19 has affected Buddhists in Asia. While the long-term consequences
on religious communities remain unclear, scholars are reporting on the
effects of the pandemic on Buddhist practices across Asia. Many of these
Excerpted from Sayadaw U
public facing essays focus on what are overtly religious practices, such
Tejaniya, Relax and Be Aware:
as the online migration of Buddhist ceremonies in Singapore or dharma
Mindfulness Meditations for
teaching in Nepal, or the use of protective rites against Covid from around
Clarity, Confidence, and Wisdom,
the Buddhist world. This focus is most explicit in an essay by Pierre
Shambhala: 2019. pp 136.
Salguerro that highlights how different types of Buddhists have protected
US$17.95.
themselves against the disease. The essay argues that journalistic accounts
www.shambhala.com
have primarily highlighted meditation as a Buddhist response and ignored