I tell him we’re working in India. He sighs, ‘a billion people; so many people’. I ask him how that makes him feel and he just shakes his head. He tells me he has toothache; not acute, but it’s been nagging him for a long time. He thinks we should all be taxed at source for charity. ‘But what about the individual connection with people’, I counter. He says, ‘but I don’t want to give in order to feel good about myself. I don’t want to act out of middle class guilt’. He sighs again, ‘there are so many people in the world; six billion’. I say that the trouble with questioning our motives like that is that we can paralyse ourselves into non-action. He nods, ‘yeah I know….’ I ask him how he feels when he gives something. He says the trouble is he doesn’t. I lower the leaflets. I say that he must have given something at least once in his life. I have been reflecting on this; that every single person has been generous at least once in their lives and I see this generosity like a jewel inside them; a drop of crystallized nectar, even though it may be covered in dust or mud or encased in rock. He agrees that he has given something before. I ask him how it feels to think of that. He says it feels good. I ask in what way and he says it makes him feel connected. But then he carries on to argue that that’s just going back to his point about not wanting to give just in order to feel good about himself. I say, ‘but imagine all those billions of people; imagine if they all felt connected’. I’m quiet then, letting him imagine it. ‘And now imagine the opposite’, I say, ‘everyone living in an isolated and disconnected way. Which sort of world would you rather live in?’ We stand quietly again. He asks me for a leaflet and turns straight to the back page; the suggested donations. ‘So can I do this now?’ he asks.
It’s the end of morning meditation. I’ve spent the last five minutes in this fantasy. It was true up till the bit where I lowered the leaflets. I didn’t lower them – I had a second go at giving him one. He refused.
