Now is a good time

An anonymous account from one of our readers on how a Buddhist perspective helped her through a challenging period in her life. 

Andrea Miller20 May 2009

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.”

Andrea Miller

Andrea Miller

Andrea Miller is the deputy editor of Lion’s Roar magazine. She’s the author of Awakening My Heart: Essays, Articles, and Interviews on the Buddhist Life, as well as the picture book The Day the Buddha Woke Up.