Loneliness is a familiar experience, but it can feel very vulnerable and slightly threatening  •  we do lots of things to hide that feeling  •  my teacher, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, emphasized the value of relating to our loneliness but he also emphasized the value of being in community  •  this may seem like a contradiction, but in fact, by developing the strength to accommodate our own fundamental aloneness, we can actually be in community in a much stronger and more loving way  •  without that, if community were based solely on people leaning on one another, we could be knocked over very easily  •  loneliness is a fact  •  there are certain things in this life we have to do all by ourselves  •  we are born alone, and we die alone  •  a deep-rooted loneliness comes baked into life itself  •  one way of accommodating the reality of loneliness is to take loneliness as an ongoing default position, rather than as a mistake or a failure  •  we could recognize loneliness as a thread that runs through our life from the very beginning to the very end  •  but in order to accommodate the reality of loneliness, we have to actually get through the sometimes extreme pain of loneliness  •  showing up for our own loneliness can give us the courage we need to show up for others who are struggling with loneliness and abandonment.