You Are Stunned....

A Practice for Powerlessness

My friends,

What a week this has been (so far) and we don’t know what comes next. My mind loves to catastrophize and is doing a very good job of it. So I’m going out of my mind and into my body as the following text suggests. This is one of 112 practices from the Vijnana Bhairava, a text of yogic non-dualism from the 6^th to the 8^th century BCE. There is something for everyone in this text and also for everything that happens to anyone. There are sutras/meditations for breathing, for sensing the chakras, for eating, for making love, gazing at the sky, and so much more. And there are sutras for times like this! If you can, read this slowly and out loud to yourself and FEEL it.

Sutra 89 from The Radiance Sutras by Lorin Roche, PhD

You are stunned, powerless.

You thought you knew

What was going on.

Now you realize you don’t have a clue.

You are stopped in your tracks.

Everything within your skin is shaking.

Enter this shaking.

Get curious.

Look around inside with wonder.

Unmind your mind.

All the walls have fallen down—

Go ahead and dissolve.

The One Who Has Always Been,

Who has seen much worse than this,

Is still here.

I brought this sutra to my meditation class this week. It felt so powerful to be with the truth of shock and powerless. And to experience powerlessness as a portal to Oneness was certainly a new concept for me when I first heard this sutra years ago. One of the Sanskrit words in the text is ashakti, meaning not powerful. Shakti is the word for creative power of the universe and this is the opposite of that.

And because life is life, I have had many opportunities to return to this sutra. It always helps.

In my other class this week we explored so many feelings and where they were located in our bodies:

Anger

Rage

Despair

Sorrow

Heartbreak

Compassion

Empathy

Confusion

Longing

And more. I’m giving each one it’s own space to emphasize how powerful each embodied feeling was and how many feelings each person was holding.

Then we went to our values, the core of what we care about, what we are longing for when we are feeling all those feelings above. This was powerful for us all as we felt into our values and paused to feel those of all the others as they spoke and found those qualities in their bodies. In our bodies. Can we feel what we long for even as we are despairing and furious.  It turns out we can.

Trust

Love

Compassion

Inclusion

Mutual Reality

Safety

Competence

Honesty

Calmness

Integrity

Linger here a moment. These are powerful words, made more powerful by living into them. That night I went home buoyed by community (safety) and felt empowered by love for and courage of all of us. I collapsed in bed and slept well until 4:30a which was a surprise and delight. Then once again the dark thoughts and worries intruded and I could feel all that spinning inside. Then I remembered our practice of moving toward what we care about. I chose a couple of the above qualities and installed them into my heart where they beat there as sacred mantras, vibrations ringing out like bells through my body. I slept. I woke again and installed mantras again and slept.

It’s important to know what we are against, but more important to know what we are FOR. That gives us agency to rest in goodness and move forward with confidence and power. May you each feel your feelings and find a value or two to hold close in the night.

For me, this is not the time to figure out anything. I’m still catastrophizing (big time), but I’m also connecting with friends and students, resting, and feeling, and steeping in inclusion and love like the heart-opening balms they are. I’m thinking about what I’ll need to do to keep those at risk close, and who to share my money with. Care for yourself and our community now and we’ll soon rise up strong with good ideas for this next phase.