Living through Corona – Interview II
Mark Ellison
I currently work as a researcher doing computational modelling of language in Cologne, Germany, but hail from Sydney, Australia originally. This is my 6th country – so far – and I love the challenge of learning a new place, new culture, new language. I regularly drink buttered coffee, but only go full keto occasionally – when I can bring myself to part with bread. My personal philosophy is to bring together what Buddhism has explored subjectively, and science objectively.
How are you feeling today?
I am feeling good. A little sleepy .. I try to get 7 and a half hours of sleep a night, and just couldn’t manage it last night.
Pre-Corona, did you have a mindfulness practice? If so, what was it?
I have two mindfulness practices, zazen and fast writing. Zazen (literally sitting zen) is when I place myself on a cushion and face the wall and with no other intention than to sit. This is the Soto Zen practice of shikantaza (sublime reflection). Before Corona I did this infrequently.
My other practice is fast-writing – 10 (or sometimes 15) minutes of just writing without editing or stopping – on anything, without constraint. I learned this practice from Natalie Goldberg’s book Writing down the Bones. This I also did, but infrequently.
Has that changed during the lockdown?
I guess there have been three changes during lockdown. I haven’t sat with a Zen group regularly since I left Scotland in 2006, but had kept in touch with my friends in the Glasgow Zen Group. With Corona, that group needed to move online, using zoom for joint sittings. This opened the door for me to reconnect with them, and restart regular zazen with a group. So every Saturday morning, and occasionally at other times, I meditate with friends via zoom.
The second thing was realising that I could not rely on incidental exercise – from commuting and going up and down stairs at the office to keep fit anymore. So, as well as taking afternoon walks, I do exercise in the morning to the accompaniment of a short playlist on spotify (4 songs). Reducing my zazen ambitions for 25 minutes to 15 made it easy to attach to the end of my exercise, and so now my meditation is almost daily.
Finally, I set up a software on my computer to open a blank page in an editor, and set a timer, so I can easily do the fast-writing. It has yet to become a daily habit though.
What do you find most challenging during the lockdown?
Not seeing other people in person. My favourite time of the working day was lunch. At one of my work places, everyone would gather at one table in the T-room and just talk while eating … in a bunch of languages, and about work or very random topics. I miss that – the dynamics are not the same via zoom or skype, those media are to intentional.
One thing I was really looking forward to with my move to the heart of Europe, here in Cologne, was travelling to places across Germany, its neighbours, and beyond. And many friends have coincidentally moved here, and I looked forward to spending time with them. But the lockdown has killed travel, even visiting friends in other parts of the same country.
Another travel issue are farflung friends going through difficult times, who I would – in normal times – go visit and support, but cannot. That is hard.
How are you responding to this challenge?
I talk a lot online, as most people are doing. I talk daily with some friends, less frequently with others, but most days will include a few short chats with people, and maybe some longer ones. Sometimes, I’ll do a video call with a friend while they are having dinner and I am having breakfast or lunch (depending on timezones), and it will be a nice social thing. Or with Nina, we used to have long chats over coffee, so it is fun to have coffee when we chat, resonating with those past in-person meetups.
The flip side of virtual meetings is regular time in parks. I usually walk the whole time, and the exercise is great, but so is just seeing many people at one time … all at appropriate social distances of course. My friends in Cologne are dispersed, so I rarely get to meet any in the park, but just seeing bulk embodied humans is good.
Has there been a specific moment that made you pivot? A moment of epiphany?
I get inspired by my friends .. they are inspiring people. One, who is a writer, researcher and creative chef, told me that she was afraid that the lockdown would end before she had changed everything. That statement struck me and stuck with me: this lockdown period is an opportunity, and one too good to let pass.
What has come closest to a pivot is a shift in focus from outside to inside. It hasn’t been a point so much as a process. I bought a thermomix, so I buy less ready-made, and eat better home-made food. I started prioritising getting enough sleep over external demands on my time. Daily exercise and meditation became habits, choosing a format that fitted me better. Rearranging my home to give a better sense of order and clarity – before lockdown, I had left it pretty much as when I moved in.
Have you developed any new habits or rituals during this period?
Quite a few, mostly stemming from fewer demands on my time to be away from home. Most of these are habits which would be good at anytime, but I only managed to make them stick now. So:
a) I make the bed as soon as I rise,
b) exercise to a fixed playlist, then sit in meditation for 15 minutes,
c) almost every afternoon I go for a walk in nearby streets and parks, for an hour or more, and listen to podcasts while I walk,
d) I clean in the kitchen, and do the washing up, at 8:30pm each night,
e) go to bed at 9pm, or as soon as possible after that,
f) every week, I plan out my recipes, make a shopping list, and shop just once ... if that.
What will you carry into post-Corona times? How are you going to make room for these changes? And why do you wish to continue them?
Most of those habits above. They are habits I wanted before Corona, but never got around to doing, as was kind of stuck in an unchosen pattern of life. The daily walks will likely be integrated with commutes, however, once I go to workplaces more regularly.
The main reason to continue them is that these habits are in support of being healthier and happier. I don’t want health and happiness to slip after Corona. I don’t want back to normal, but rather, on to even better.
How to make room for these changes? The simple answer is that as real-world interactions take up more time again, I will wind back some online interactions (e.g. time on social media, email) and consumption (looking at you, Netflix).
Is there anything else you’d like to pass on to others about mindfulness and/or personal development that applies to this unique global event?
The most underrated key to happiness is mudita. It’s something I’ve been a bit obsessed with for the last 2 years. Mudita means taking joy in someone else’s happiness. You can be the agent of that happiness, such as when you do something nice for someone else, but you can also feel this sympathy with joy in others even if you weren’t involved in making it. Anyway, I highly recommend spending time each day, focussing on a good thing happening for someone else, and taking pleasure in it. You could even go so far as having a highlights section in your diary, or a gratitude page, which are not about good things happening to you but to other people. Someone receives an award, a friend sees something beautiful (and maybe shared it on social media), someone else has a baby, a colleague catches up with a good friend.
There is so much fear (it is a pandemic) and anger (authorities are doing wrong/bad things) bringing gloom in these times, we need to see the brightness as well. And if we look, there is a lot of brightness ready-made in the happy experiences of other people.
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