I don’t know if somebody already posted this. If so, please delete it but I thought it was very beautiful to share.
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Thank you, Ayya Vimala. 
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Excellent and timely post, thank you for sharing Ayya. I just logged in to discourse to inform the readers that we are seeking to establish a live chanting platform online for 24 or 48 hours, ideally, we like to cover all time zones, it will be an hour of live chanting form each location ( suttas TBC) We like to build on @lokanta 717 service via @dhammanet. @sujato (Bhante Sujato) is happy to support and we have about 10 monasteries from different parts of the world who like to participate. (2X Sydney, 2 X Melbourne, 3X Sri Lanka, 1X LA, IX Scotland, 1X Italy TBC,) It is okay to have more than one location from each time zone. Do you like to participate? Do you have networks who might like to join? We like to formalise the group by Wednesday to start on Friday.
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What a wonderful and innovative, compassionate thing to do 
Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu!
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While shopping at Coles supermarket a few days ago I noticed that some shelves were empty of the packaged, imported, over-processed and devitalised foods. It occurred to me that this Corona virus epidemic is actually a great opportunity to empty out the warehouse stores of such non-essential and second-rate goods, and never make them again. Instead encourage people to buy fresh, little processed foods, locally grown or produced and packaged. Encourage local business and jobs. So also minimise transport of non-essentials, and pollution from it, across the globe.
And it would be good to see the supermarket shelves emptied of water bottled in plastic containers, and of soft drinks too. Bottled water has apparently more microplastic particles than tap water., costs more and adds plastic waste.
We have plenty of fresh produce here in Australia, Canned foods and even frozen foods I think are OK for camping or if you live out somewhere in the country, or going on expedition to cold places like Antarctica. Personally for the last 40 years at least I have relied almost entirely on fresh foods and dried foods, and avoided canned and frozen foods as far as possible. It is easy in Sydney. I feel sorry for people who are stacking up on second-rate food stuff, even stacking up on healthy foods thinking just about themselves or their families.
The Corona epidemic can potentially help to speed up the global efforts to more eco-friendly ways of living. So I hope that good will come out this crisis , that it will at least catalyse social and global shift to more intelligent and compassionate ways of living. Otherwise, what has been learnt from it, what has been gained, if the businesses and consumers return to the same bad ways after the epidemic subsided? The vaccine is needed, and ‘herd immunity’ too, but without change in ways of life, the cycle will continue with another epidemic likely to emerge a few years later.
United Nations has prepared a guide to saving the world, especially useful in the current atmosphere of social distancing and isolation:
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/takeaction/
What are your thoughts on this? What are your shopping insights during this Corona virus times?
This verse by Thich Nhat Hahn I find very helpful for reflection before meals or just for contemplation on anything I use:
“In this food, I see clearly presence of the entire Universe supporting my existence”.
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My wish is that all good forces now would know their place in time, and regard this as a golden opportunity to reach the whole humanity in the same moment. We’re confined to our own homes, being apart from each other, like a kind of home monastics. So people are really suffering because most of their distractions are gone, so now the flesh and mind might be tender enough for one true reality to be served. Nowadays one sees spiritual leaders and teachers all around the world are offering online retreats, but they are only picked up by their own followers, and those who have money available. Why can’t they join forces now, never mind the cash flow, and push their message through our, pardon my words; the damn screen that people are glued to right now in their own living space …
As it is now, people are in my opinion terrorized by a frantic media that serves only the worst in this situation, and very little of the positive sides.
Excuse my rant, but it felt good for this blob of suffering too just get it out 
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And another Thank You:
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And yet another Thank You, a story to share:
Where I am currently living, with my parents, there are two neighboring villages. In 1946 after the second world war the residents of the two villages established a procession to express their gratitude that the two villages hadn’t been destroyed during the war. Every year on Good Friday, starting from 1946, people would gather at the church in one village and walk in their procession to the church of the other village. And every year since the beginning my dad has joined this procession. The last couple of times he has been the only one who had been there since the beginning, being the only one of that age who was still alive and physically fit enough to do it.
For the first time, this year the procession has been cancelled because of the pandemic.
But my dad simply decided to make a “single procession”. So he walked down to the church of the other village and then walked all the way back to our village again. Just by himself. So there’s still at least one person who has kept up this beautiful tradition of gratitude. 
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That’s such a beautiful account. Thank you so much for sharing it 
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What we might learn from Covid:
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