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How many real human beings are there on this planet of over 6.6 billion people? In other words, how many people are truly alive, following the prompting of their hearts? Or how many are so wounded that they are just going through the motions, living mechanical lives? Maybe five out of six? What does that say about life on Earth?

To be a human being means to be able to connect to other people. Not with words, but just by being with them. It means the ability to feel. It means the ability to express passion, and beauty.

We can communicate so much without words. Have you ever been to a foreign country where you didn’t speak the language? It’s a great opportunity to communicate with presence, and with your eyes. Silence is wonderful because it gives us an opportunity to get beyond concepts and form, which are hallmarks of language, and experience communication from heart to heart. It’s an opportunity for oneness.

Have you ever been so deeply in love with someone that words weren’t necessary? There could be long stretches of time of just gazing into each other’s eyes. That is living intensely in the present moment. That’s when the heart is open. That’s when the mind is quieted. That is aliveness.

They don’t teach that in school. They teach everything but that. In my high school they taught math, science, health, biology, languages, music, and psychology, but nothing on how to be alive. Even at the University of Cincinnati I didn’t see one course on how to be a human being. It seems our society is more focused on doing rather than on being.

Tonight I saw the last 45 minutes of “My Dinner with Andre.” I hadn’t seen it in years and I enjoyed it more than the last time.

Somebody once asked Roger Ebert if he could name a movie that was entirely devoid of cliches. He thought for a moment, and then answered, “My Dinner With Andre.” It’s a very refreshing film.

There was a sequence of dialogue in the film that I found especially thought provoking on what it means to be a human being. Here is the dialogue exchange:

ANDRÉ:… I mean, I don’t know about you, Wally, but I just had to put myself into a kind of training program to learn how to be a human being. I mean, how did I feel about anything? I didn’t know. What kind of things did I like, what kind of people did I really want to be with, you know? And the only way I could think of to find out was to just cut out all the noise, and stop performing all the time and just listen to what was inside me. See, I think a time comes when you need to do that. Now, maybe in order to do it you have to go to the Sahara, and maybe you can do it at home, but you need to cut out the noise. [Street noise: honking.]

WALLY: Yeah. Of course, personally I just–I usually don’t like those quiet moments, you know, I really don’t. I mean, I don’t know if it’s that Freudian thing or what, but–you know, the fear of unconscious impulses or my own aggression or whatever–but if things get too quiet and I find myself just sitting there, you know, as we were saying before, I mean, whether I’m by myself or I’m with someone else, I just, I just have this feeling of: “My God! I’m gonna be revealed!” In other words I’m adequate to do any sort of a task, but I’m not adequate just to be a human being. I mean, in other words I’m not–if I’m just trapped there and I’m not allowed to do things but all I can do is just be there, well, I’ll just fail. I mean, in other words, I can pass any other sort of a test, and I, you know, I can even get an A, if I put in the required effort. But I just don’t have a clue how to pass this test. I mean, of course I realize this isn’t a test, but I see it as a test and I feel I’m gonna fail it, I mean, it’s very scary. I just feel, just totally at sea. I mean…

I think there are a lot of people like Wally–people who feel they are going to fail at being a human being, afraid of silence. They think silence will reveal a Pandora’s box of suffering. If you are like Wally, what can you do about emotional wounds so that they don’t control your life?

I have found in my life that the most clean-cut and complete way of eliminating past wounds is a Buddhist practice of sitting with them, embracing them, and letting them go. The wounds are in the mind, waiting to be dissolved by the light of your consciousness. They’ll disappear as naturally as the night’s darkness dissolves into the morning sunlight.

These wounds are like living entities. It’s like having a ghost in the house. You can’t ignore them. But if you give them your undivided attention, they’ll leave. Consciousness is the antidote. Don’t rush the process. Then once they are gone, they are gone.

One impediment to this process is that too often people create an identity out of past pain. It is part of the ego. It’s part of the past. Only if you can live life fully in the present moment will the scabs drop off. Then you will know what it means to be a human being–and not a mechanical robot.

The willingness to live as a passionate human being in the present moment with an open heart is the key. Otherwise you are extending an invitation to the wounds of the past-those ghosts in the attic.

If you can do that you will realize that you are not that wounded, limited being that was hurt so deeply. You don’t have to live mechanically.

But how do you enter the present moment? By trusting it. Try it. It can’t hurt you. It’s just a moment, after all. And you’re a human being.

Try taking a deep breath. Focus on your breath. Try it again. Each moment that you focus on your breath is a moment that your mind is disburdened of the past. The focus on the breath brings it into the present. That is the domain of consciousness. That is what it means to be a real human being.

It’s like dipping your foot in the swimming pool before you dive in. You want to make sure that it’s not too cold. But once you dive in, you’ll be fine.