Human beings are wonderful. But some are more wonderful than others. For example, you and I know the kind of person we open up to, trust with our closest secrets, cannot sit down with without wanting to unload our troubles on to them.

Conversely there are others who we don’t want to know what we had for breakfast. We don’t trust them, don’t feel their openness and sincerity and wouldn’t seek them out for counseling, for a listening ear if they were the last person in the world.

This personal quality, the resonance and aura of warmth and empathy that surrounds the first type of person, is energetic and ethereal, not necessarily physical and apparent.

A story: A friend of mine who became a Zen master once told me about the time when she was traveling on a train to visit her family. The custom among the monks from this particular temple when traveling was to blend in, even for short shopping trips. They didn’t wear robes or appear with bald heads in public. So she was sitting on this train in civilian garb wearing a wig, looking like any ordinary conformist person—and most definitely not like a Zen monk—when a man got on the train and sat opposite her in the carriage. Before his destination stop he had poured out his heart to her—his whole relationship history, his frustration with his job, his worries about his ailing mother, his difficulties with his kids, his guilty secret—everything! She said to me that this had happened at other times too. She realized that becoming a monk, taking the vows, making the commitment had somehow placed her in service to the world, in service to humanity, and that she carried this energetically with her wherever she went, so that people like the man in the carriage were drawn toward it and responded to it out of their great need.

Of course, you don’t have to be a Zen monk for this to happen. I had an aunt who had this quality of caring. You couldn’t help but notice that when everyone else was shouting or criticizing or getting wound up, she was in the middle of it all, concerned, engaged, but yet serene and removed from it as well. She had a quality of awareness and acceptance and for that I was drawn to her. Later in school I had a teacher with a similar quality of warmth and authenticity. He supported my writing, my creativity, and encouraged me and gave me confidence. He extended his care to me and I felt like I mattered to him. We all know the ones we can share with, the ones whom are healing to be with, the ones who seem to know a little more, the ones who have dug deeper into the secrets of life. They are the ones who care—not that others don’t—it’s just that they radiate warmth and empathy so they follow through and deliver.

BLOG entry #60