Beating quarantine confinement blues with mindfulness
A curious visitor
Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, on my return to Sri Lanka from overseas, I had to undergo a mandatory two week quarantine per government policy at a designated hotel. I was assigned Blue Water Hotel in Wadduwa, a four-star hotel with all the modern conveniences. However, being an active individual who loves his freedom to move around, being involuntarily confined to a room for two weeks was stressful to say the least. In order to relieve mental stress, I practised “mindfulness”.
What is mindfulness? Dr. Ellen Langer, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University defines mindfulness as being in the moment, to be in the present, to be aware. One simple way to be more mindful is to notice new things or be insightful. According to Langer’s studies, mindful noticing diminished pain in people with arthritis and chronic pain.
Even as far back as 500 BC, the Buddha made frequent reference to mindfulness in the sutras. In verse 27 of the Dhammapada, the Buddha states, “Therefore one should not be negligent, nor be addicted to sensual pleasures, for he who is established in mindfulness, through cultivation of tranquility and insight development practice, experiences supreme happiness”. It is now standard practice in the medical community to recommend mindfulness exercises as a stress reducing intervention.
I practised mindfulness by sitting in the balcony of my room, facing the Indian Ocean a mere 100 metres away, at dawn and at dusk, observing the different birds, their calls and their behaviours. At dawn around 5.30 a.m., the birds wake up and greet the new day with their cries. The birds I saw in descending order of frequency were parrots, crows, pigeons, mynahs, bats, kingfishers, herons, konda kurullas, and ospreys. The cries of the birds reminded me of an orchestra, with the constant breaking of the surf being the background base.
Dr. Mohan Kumararatne
At about 6 a.m. all the parrots, with lots of screeching take off en masse in a north-easterly direction to their feeding habitats. There are literally hundreds of them. The crows meanwhile in their own packs, hang around the hotel, in search of morsels of discarded human food. The bats being nocturnal animals cannot be seen during daytime, whilst the rest of the birds forage for their food in the neighbourhood.
At dusk, around 6 p.m., the parrots return en masse, again with a cacophony of screeching to roost on the coconut trees in front of the balcony. There is a lot of screeching and flying around the coconut trees with the parrots, crows and the bats looking for the choice spots to roost. Whilst the parrots cling to the underside of the coconut leaves, the bats hang upside down from the main stem of the leaf, and the crows roost on top of the branches. There are plenty of parrots, crows and bats, roosting on a single coconut tree, and I did not see any of them attacking each other. They have learnt to share a common home. It also made me realize that the birds do a better job of sharing their common home in peace and harmony, than we Sri Lankans do in sharing our common home in this wonderful island.
Between 6.30 and 7 p.m. the bright orange red sun with a scarlet sky around it, dips below the horizon and disappears. It is a beautiful sight. By about 7.30 it is dark and the moon and stars show up. The yellow moon, with twinkling stars on a cloudless dark sky is another wonderful sight to behold. By now it is all calm and quiet on the coconut trees, not a hum to be heard from the birds. The birds have retired for the night.
I am sure that if I did not practise mindfulness, I would have missed these wonderful experiences all around me. By about 8 p.m., my mind is at peace, I am relaxed, it is time for me to follow the birds and retire for the night.
Coconut trees: Common home for many birds as dusk falls