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I was sitting on a rock by the Potomac River meditating when, for the first time, the reality of the coronavirus pandemic struck me fully. My heart clenched as I realized the likelihood that my daughter-in-law, who works at a hospital in San Francisco, could contract the virus and then spread it to her family—my son, granddaughter, and ex-husband who lives with them due to a serious heart condition. My thoughts went to my many friends who are older or otherwise vulnerable. I thought of the inmates stuck in virus-infected prisons and of those packed into refugee camps around the world and on our own borders.
With the spiraling currents of thought, my agitation spiked, and I found myself caught in the feelings of a scared, powerless, separate self. Thankfully, the RAIN meditation, which I practice regularly, started spontaneously in my mind.
The acronym RAIN is an easy-to-remember tool for practicing mindfulness and compassion using the following four steps: Recognize what is happening; Allow the experience to be there, just as it is; Investigate with interest and care; Nurture with self-compassion. As I sat quietly, I recognized the feeling with a mental note ... fear, fear. Then, allowing the feeling, I gently whispered to myself: “This, too, belongs. This fear is not an intruder that shouldn’t be here.” Now present, I could pause and deepen my attention.
Gently beginning to investigate, I looked for where the sensations of fear were strongest in my body and honed in to sense: What is this feeling really like? There was a strangling feeling in my heart—squeezing, aching, hollow. I placed my hand on my heart, and, breathing with the fear, I located the very epicenter of the pain. It was at the raw edge of that pulsing, aching hollowness. Surrendering all resistance, I opened fully to the waves of fear as they arose and passed. I could feel my heart opening to ask what this deep, vulnerable place most needed. What was it asking for?
The answer that arose was to feel love—to feel belonging to something larger. Offering nurturing to that hurting place, my attention opened wide to the field of love and awareness that pervades our universe. Imagining love pouring into me from this vast, yet very intimate, presence, I could feel it bathing and saturating the fear in my heart.
After the RAIN, I sat in stillness … simply resting in the field of loving presence. Fear lingered ... though held by love, it was less intense. It no longer felt like “my” fear about the virus. Rather, it was the world’s fear—the pain of the world that we all carry. And like waves on the surface of a great ocean, the fear moved within a vast and tender awareness.
And then, along with the fear inside me, I could also hear the calling of the geese and the sound of the river flowing around the rocks below me. The suffering in the world that called my heart was real, and so was the wild beauty of this life.
Before the pandemic, we felt the reality of pain and loss, and we will continue to do so when this crisis has passed. Always, the secret to healing is to feel the pain fully and bathe it in love. This opens us to the loving awareness that can embrace both loss and joy, the wholeness of being that is our true home.
Guided Reflection: Bringing Rain to Fear, Tara Brach
