Wash Your Hands and Meditate

Hi, this is Anishka. So recently you've probably heard about the coronavirus and staying healthy, and one of the recommendations is that we wash our hands often and that we try not to touch our face. The recommendation to wash your hands well has highlighted for many of us that we actually haven't been washing our hands as thoroughly as we could have for all of our lives.

The recommendation is to do it for 20 seconds. And I've heard things like sing Happy Birthday to you twice. To get to that amount of time. For me, it felt strange to sing Happy Birthday when it's nobody's birthday. So I came up with another version, which uses the well wishing or meta phrases. So as you're washing your hands, you can do two rounds of meta basically, which will get you to around 20 seconds.

So you wet your hands. You get the soap and then you start saying, may I be peaceful and happy? May I be strong and healthy. May I be safe from inner and outer harm. May I care for myself with ease? May we all be peaceful and happy. May we all be strong and healthy. May we all be safe from inner and outer harm.

May we all care for ourselves with ease. So sometimes this can make a more meaningful experience of hand washing because what you're doing while you're doing that is actually an act of care for yourself and others. And as you do this many times during the day, after using the bathroom, after eating, before eating, when you come in from outside, gives you many more opportunities to be cultivating this sense of goodwill, which is also good for your heart and your.

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