What follows is an anonymous account from one of our readers on how a Buddhist perspective helped her through a challenging period in her life.
I knew I needed some help and I needed it fast. Struggling, I opened the phonebook to look up the crisis line. After many tries I got through, but a recorded voice said, “There are no volunteers available to staff our line” CLICK…DIAL TONE. This was bad.
OK, OK, Plan B, Plan B, call a church. I began to go through all the churches close by. United, no too far away, Catholic, close but disappointing in the past… okay, the Buddhists. How about them? I asked myself. Close enough and no past pain associated. When someone picked up the phone, I said, “You don’t know me, but I really need someone to talk to.” The person on the other end said, “Now’s a good time. I could come to you or you could come to me.”
That moment changed my life, my anxiety level came down at the speed of an elevator. Two days later I learned to meditate and I have been active with the same Buddhist community for the past fifteen years.
Years later I became a crisis line volunteer myself, and with a good deal of Buddhist training to support me, I had the opportunity to answer the phone and give some distraught person the sense that “now is a good time.”
