One experience that has stayed with me was watching Sunyata work with another student during a martial arts practice.
She asked the student to stand up and punch the air as though she were protecting someone she loved. The student immediately found a strength and intensity that had not been present in her usual movements. Sunyata then asked her to bring that same quality into every movement of her form.
Each time the student began again, Sunyata would stop her at a different point and ask for more intention. Even the smallest movements, she explained, could not be done passively. The student didn’t need to muscle through them. She needed to bring her full presence and intent.
I watched the student become stronger with every repetition. It wasn’t simply that her movements became more powerful. Something in her came alive. By the end, she was moving with a completely different quality: focused, grounded, controlled, and fully present.
What struck me most was that the strength had already been inside her. Sunyata hadn’t given it to her. She had created the conditions for the student to discover it and learn how to wield it.
That experience became a teaching for me about strength itself.
I had often associated strength with force, dominance, or the ability to overpower something outside of myself. But what I witnessed was something very different. True strength came from learning to direct my own energy, rather than trying to control someone or something else. It was about bringing my intention, awareness, and whole being into the moment.
I began to see that this is what Sunyata is asking of us in every aspect of practice: Are you going to step fully into this moment, or are you going to hold yourself back? Are you going to bring your consciousness to what is in front of you, or move through it half-awake?
The martial arts became a tangible way to practice something much larger. The real training was learning to develop strength and self-command within my own mind and consciousness.
That lesson has stayed with me far beyond the dojo. I have learned that every moment gives me an opportunity to practice the same thing: to bring more presence, more intention, and more of myself to what I am doing, rather than moving through life from habit or conditioning.
For me, that is one of the deepest gifts of studying with Sunyata. The teaching is not simply something I hear. It becomes something I can experience directly, practice, and eventually recognize within myself.