How can I meditate if there's a pandemic?

Burmese Theravada Sayadaw U Tejaniya via Ellie Askew, Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

"Relax. Nothing is under control."

One sits with craving (ambition for success), and it doesn’t work. One sits for a pleasant abiding and nothing more, which itself is a kind of ambition, and if it’s not there, one stops. One doesn’t meditate. One says one can't meditate. What to do?

Burmese master Sayadaw Tejaniya explained it in this way in a recent interview:

Sayadaw U Tejaniya and a young monk

QUESTION: An interviewer said, "The most common question I’ve received from yogis [meditators] to ask you is, 'How can a person practice to maintain awareness and equanimity with all the fear, anxiety, and uncertainty that COVID-19 has unleashed?'"

ANSWER: Ven. Tejaniya explained, As far as the practice is concerned, I can only say, practice as usual. I only give instructions for practice, and the practice instructions are always the same.

Insight: Let's just observe things as they are.

There's almost a mantra in the way I teach, which is, We're not practicing to make things happen in the mind [heart], such as equanimity, or to make things go away, such as fear or uncertainty.

Rather, we practice in order to OBSERVE things as they are happening and to understand.

Irish U Dhammaloka in Burma

The most important thing is not to think about how to practice in order that something will go away, like our fears, so that we can then enjoy equanimity. That's not the way to approach the practice.

The way to approach practice is to remember first and foremost that the mind suffers whenever it either resists or craves having an experience.

The right attitude is instead accepting, observing, and learning from our experience just as it is.