You know the feeling; a forlornness, a crushing despondency filled with despair and hopelessness; a desperate reaching out for anyone who might hear your apprehensive, silent cries of anguish. You will do most anything to relieve the terrible feelings of dejection, and begin looking for someone to talk to, or something to do; anything to get your mind off this claustrophobic emptiness.
With any luck, you will find comfort in someone new, or a new activity that keeps your mind busy and engaged so that the loneliness won't creep back in. But what if that new friend or that new situation disappeared suddenly? Then what? What would happen is that the loneliness would raise its ugly head again, as if it were a latent disease lurking in your mind, waiting to destroy you at the first opportunity
And you know it's there. That's what's so frightening. No matter what you do, you know it's there, waiting -- at the end of the road. And no matter how long that road is, no road is long enough. You may be married fifty years, but at the end, there could be crushing loneliness.
This is a terrible thing to have over your head, this loneliness. If there were only a cure so that regardless of what happened, you would never be lonely again. That would be a terrific thing, because then most of our underlying fears would be gone, and we would have a chance to really live life for a change.
If you decided to look into this and really attack loneliness, could you surprise yourself and defeat it? I say that you can, and it is relatively easy. All you have to do is get to know loneliness rather than run from it.
You can begin by watching your thoughts, because without thoughts there can be no loneliness.
Since we have been thinking non-stop since birth, watching thoughts so that we can get to know our loneliness, instead of running from it like a coward, can be a little tricky to begin with. There are so many thoughts and they are so fast, it's like trying to catch a train that's going a hundred miles an hour down the tracks. We must find a way to slow the train down.
The easiest way to slow the train down is to keep one BIG thought in mind, and then the millions of other little thoughts can't surface. The best BIG thought to keep in mind is the one that is with you at all times; which is simply your breathing. When you direct your mind to your breathing, that's a thought! "I'm watching my breathing." Then, all the little (or big thoughts such as, "I'm so lonely,") can't get in.
The interesting thing about this simple substitution of one BIG thought for all the little thoughts is that the underlying fear that you have; knowing that loneliness could arise, or all the hundreds of other little fears you have been harboring -- they all go away for awhile. And when they go away for awhile, the mind finds some breathing space, and you never know what will come of that. Sometimes immensely creative things!
It's easy to begin practicing one BIG thought. Before you go to bed every night, sit on the floor, knees crossed, back straight, and watch your breathing at the solar plexus. The belly will subtly go in and out. Think, "I am watching my breath." And then just watch the belly go in and out without even thinking about it. If a stray thought comes into your mind that takes your attention off your belly going in and out, then as soon as you discover that you have been ambushed by a little thought, go back to the BIG thought, "I am watching my breathing."
Few accomplished meditators are ever lonely. They do not fear being alone at all, and this is what this practice can lead to. It can lead to more as well, such as complete total freedom from fear, and to, well . . . complete total freedom!
E. Raymond Rock of Fort Myers, Florida is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center, http://www.SouthwestFloridaInsightCenter.com His twenty-eight years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. His book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books) is now available at major bookstores and online retailers. Visit http://www.AYearToEnlightenment.com
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