Since the commencement of the 49-day Spring Meditation Retreat of Ling Jiou Mountain (LJM) on February 10, a group of 100-plus monastics and lay followers have been practicing daily meditation at the LJM Wusheng Monastery to start off the lunar new year and determined to gain solid advancement in their Buddhist studies. At the same time, the world has fallen victim to a penetrating fear of a widespread pandemic of a new coronavirus known as Covid-19, which demands cool heads and calm minds in its combat. Meditation, thus accordingly, not only brings along peace of mind to people who practice it individually but a chance at world peace collectively. Heart at peace, therefore, can be assumed as a means to escape the pandemic. Toward that end, the Spring Meditation Retreat was also the vehicle where the collective peace at heart was consolidated to reinforce its capacity for resonance. Before the Spring Meditation Retreat came to an end, the fourfold assemblies had been following the LJM Founding Abbot, Dharma Master Hsin Tao, in praying for the sentient beings of the world and, besides fulfilling daily requirements of Buddhist studies, chanting the Heart of Shurangama Mantra beyond 13-million times and having accomplished Chan meditation for longer than 30,000 minutes collectively cumulated altogether by February 13 . It was hoped that the collective effort would gather up everyone’s positive intent to help purify the world in banishing the devastating pandemic and eradicating calamities so that the world can regain harmony and peace.

The annual LJM Spring Meditation Retreat usually attracts quite a few overseas participants for an in-depth personal experience with meditation in search of spirituality and its awakening. With the emergence of the coronavirus at the end of 2019 and the speed of its spreading, however, it was decided that the Retreat this year would turn down overseas registrants in their best interest. Disappointed registrants are encouraged to remain positive in their conviction that their physical absence from the LJM Wusheng Monastery could find solace in the realization that their mindfulness and positivity remain unconstrained, and the geographical distance becomes insignificant in the fact that people are interconnected and we need to fight the pandemic together regardless of our differences in nationality, race, or religion.

As a result and in line with its philosophical principles of Great Compassion & Chan Meditation, LJM invites everyone to recite and chant the Heart of Shurangama Mantra every evening between 7:00 - 7:45 PM local time to pray for blessings to eradicate the misfortune. The Heart of Shurangama Mantra is regarded in Buddhism as “the King of all mantras” that holds a spell over all demons to keep all evils at bay. LJM, therefore, subscribes to the notion that the more people joining in the collective chanting of the mantra, the sooner the pandemic would ebb and die down and allow calm and order to be restored for the world.

Dharma Master Hsin Tao has publicly shared his Buddhist insight that “wanton desires and fixations deter from concentration (in our search of the truth) and only when we retrieve our pure and uncontaminated awareness and focused clear-headedness, would it be possible for us to enter the heart that tells the true emptiness of every existence.” Meditation helps to remove our desires and habits and restores our awareness to relocate our original selves. Once we achieve that, our heart no longer gets bothered by external affairs and we do not panic in the face of a spreading pandemic. As long as our hearts are steady and firm and we treat the turbulence with the normalcy of a peaceful state of mind, it will quiet down naturally.