Intimacy

Hey R,

On the subject of intimacy, it is a good and useful point that you were able to feel intimacy watching a movie. For one, you CAN feel that, and it also points out a flaw in the notion that intimacy comes from a close relationship. You felt it when you empathized with someone. It wasn't even a real person! It was a character, a depiction of humanity.

This principle is why I have suggested practicing love in your other life relationships. It doesn't mean giving someone at work or on the street a hug or $100 or whatever, it means reaching out emotionally and seeing their humanity and feeling love and empathy. Then reacting to life/relationship situations from that base. They may never even realize that you regard them with that love or caring, yet you can feel it. We know this is true because you felt it towards a fictional character/situation in a movie.

This is tied strongly into the notion of lonliness. I rarely feel lonely. In my situation, I had a few brief occasions recently, but they don't last long. I'm literally on an island in the middle of the pacific ocean without family or long term friends. How is it that I still rarely feel lonely? It is because I connect with true love and empathy and enjoyment with the people I know at work, aquaintances, whomever. I see their humanity, the common ground, and when I say hi or answer the phone or make them laugh, there is much love in my actions whether they realize it or not. For whatever reason, this works.

This is good to know because I see FEAR, a useless construct, but this empathy thing, like patience, comes with practice. Monks will meditate on situations that evoke compassion or the feeling they are trying to develop and then they hold that feeling, elongate it, extrapolate it to other situations or just feel it. And they get better at it. Because you can increase the feeling of intimacy (or any other feeling, including anger or fear) with practice, you can willfully extend the love and feel the human common ground, the intimacy, in your small actions and this is a SAFE place without the fears that you associate with romantic relationships. When you smile at work with compassion and love, the people you smile to just think you're nice. They usually don't recognize on a conscious level the depth that can behind a smile of love. So you can practice, increase intimacy, lessen lonliness safely through this practice.

I know this, because over the last 10 years I have made progress doing exactly this. I hope you find this helpful rather than rambling.

Take care ~ Tweet