When you're sick or struggling, reaching out to help others might seem impossible. A meditation teacher asks whether there's an inner place that doesn't care how you feel but still wants to support well-being in the world. That shift reorders everything, making compassion possible even when emotions won't cooperate.
How do you reach out when you don't want to reach out? How do you reach out when you're not feeling well? All these things are happening. The body's not responding in the way you've been living your whole life. And how in the midst of that, do you reach out?
Well, first of all, some of the time I'm napping or resting or whatever else. Some of the time I'm not reaching out, which is part of taking care of myself. And then the other parts are rooted in recognizing nothing else will create a sense of life having value. And there's an awareness of what is really valuable, regardless of whether I could feel it. So there's a quiet, intuitive place that says I want to respond in a way that's going to create well being for others, even if I can't emotionally experience it for myself.
You keep saying feeling it emotionally in this state where your body's not responding, where there's a state that's going on that is uncomfortable, it sounds like you're saying that you found part of your being that was not with the emotions.
Right, right. One of the key experiences that I had that was very helpful was a meditation teacher that asked me the question. It was just a question. Can you find a place inside you that doesn't care about how you feel, but still wants to support a sense of well being in the world? No matter how you feel, you can feel lousy till you die. Is there someplace inside you that wants that? And the answer was absolutely yes. Nothing else matters. And once that arose, my feelings took on a very secondary position. And at one level, they already were, but this just ignited it.
