Often people come to a meditation practice because they feel broken in some way. There’s a lot of breakage around us currently. We seem to be watching the tearing down of many governmental structures that were originally put in place to help support people in the US. We are seeing the attack on various sets of values by people with other sets of values. We are seeing how the ideal of individualism can be quite damaging, because it isn’t in accordance with reality – that we are all interconnected and, as Martin Luther King said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
It’s easy become distraught at times like this.
My main teaching is about a Hindu goddess, Akhilandeshvari, the Goddess Never Not Broken. Akhila can also be translated as entire, or totality. Thus, she signifies the totality of existence, and yet she is whole in her brokenness. She does not sit upon a perfect throne, and she is not unchanging. She reigns from a place of continual transformation. This signifies the profound wisdom that wholeness only comes through embracing our brokenness.
The author Swati Bisht says that “this paradox serves as the cornerstone of Akhilandeshwari’s spiritual teaching. The goddess reminds us that life is an eternal dance of breaking and mending, of dissolving and recreating. It is through the breaking apart of our old selves, our outdated beliefs, and our shattered illusions that we make room for something new and beautiful to emerge.”
In Buddhist terms, one of the main ways we create suffering for ourselves is by trying to control the uncontrollable. We try to make things stay the same, despite knowing the truth that nothing can.
One of the stories about Akhilandeshvari is that she started out like many of the other gods and goddesses – appearing to be perfect and constant. Yet, as she worked to maintain that appearance, cracks showed. She really wasn’t just one thing. The more she tried to hold everything together, to have it all make sense, the more fragmented she actually felt.
Furthermore, as she examined the world, she found that it also seemed to fragment and shift chaotically. People seemed to respond to these shifts with profound suffering. She witnessed all the struggles of people, and the strength of the pain that comes with impermanence and loss. She wondered how the world could be like this. She sought the answers to how to move through a world so full of loss, devastation, and vulnerability.
Her prayers were heard by Shiva the destroyer, the god of transformation. He came to her in the guise of a guide, but he gave her no direct answers. Instead, he gave her the gift of seeing herself fully: as both whole and fragmented.
She recognized that for almost anything she could say about herself, she could also say the opposite. She wanted to be kind, but she had sometimes been cruel. She was happy, but also sad, or angry, or fearful, or withdrawn. She valued the truth, but often told lies. She valued community, but could be selfish. She wanted to be faithful, but often sought novelty. She valued her independence, but longed for connection. She clung to loved ones, but chafed when they clung to her. She wanted to grow, but also wanted everything to stay the same.
In short, she recognized that she was not, and had not ever been, one thing or one way. She was a mosaic. The whole was always parts. The parts create the whole.
Because we are broken, we can adapt. We can move the parts around as needed. We can break into new parts, let old parts die away, and grow new parts.
To follow her example is to live without fear of transformation, to recognize that every challenge to our sense of self, every challenge to our wishing to hold things together is in truth an opportunity for growth. In this way we become unbreakable, because we are always broken and therefore whole. She shows us that there is strength in acknowledging and including all of our contradictions.
There is no separation between the self and the divine, nor between parts and whole, nor even between self and other. All things are the manifestation of the whole.
Our most broken moments are where we find out how strong we truly are. Or as Leonard Cohen said, the cracks are where the light gets in.`
Akhilandeshvari is typically depicted riding on a crocodile. There is a lot of interesting symbolism here. Crocodiles are ancient, having been here longer than humans. They lurk in the shallows, and they bring fear. They attack not by chewing on their prey, but by grabbing them suddenly and spinning them around until they are totally disoriented. You have had this experience during one or more of your breakings. This is what having the rug pulled out from under us feels like. Change is disorienting, and often leaves us feeling like we’re gasping for air and solid ground.
But is Akhilandeshvari scared of this? No. She rides atop this primal power, demonstrating her mastery over the primal energies of fear and transformation. She can harness her fears and the energy of not knowing what will come next as sources of power.
Furthermore, the crocodile has another layer of meaning. It resides both on land and in water. It can adapt to the situation it finds itself in. It doesn’t need to be one or the other. This can be applied to our daily thoughts, words, and actions. We don’t only need to be one thing or one way. It can also represent the somewhat false dichotomy of mind and body, or spirituality and secular life. We harness the power by not holding only to one but to embrace our mosaic nature.
We are taught through her example that the goal isn’t stability, but holding space for all parts of ourselves, past and future, errors and victories, without denying or hiding from any of these aspects. We honor all the different phases of our journeys, especially when they feel particularly confused, insufficient, or messy.
In our Zen tradition, we say that our practice is to “only don’t know.” Swati Bisht says, “Akhilandeshwari’s brokenness also teaches us the power of uncertainty, of ‘not knowing.’ In the space between what we were and what we are becoming, there is often a period of darkness—a time when we feel lost, unsure, and fragmented. This is the sacred space of the unknown, a space that Akhilandeshwari embodies fully. For her, ‘not knowing’ is not a weakness but an invitation to explore, to surrender, and to trust the process of transformation….She does not claim to have all the answer, nor does she pretend to know the way forward. Instead, she invites her devotees to walk with her into the unknown, to embrace their own fears, and to find strength in the vulnerability of ‘not knowing.’”
This teaching was given by Ven. Myeong'il as part of a larger talk given at our Spring Retreat, April 12, 2025
Picture from She Rides a Freakin" Crocodile! — Creative Hag