Illusory and Sociable

  I find that it's interesting how I often feel so open to others after meditation, particularly when I have thoroughly relaxed my body and am no longer chasing after thoughts. The sense that I get is that a lot of the scenarios I run in my mind are really just illusions, and they are about situations that either don't come to pass at all or are momentary. What arises from this is a sense of regret--the feeling I get that I have spent too much time worrying about very immaterial things that don't have any chance of arising or affecting me in any way. Then there is a feeling of gratitude for the people around me--a sense that many people around me do accept me, in spite of my deluded thoughts and worries. It's as though there is this whole wealth of forgiveness and compassion surrounding me, yet I am too preoccupied on one or two chance judgments or remarks from the past to see that field of compassion that cradles me and protects me from wrongdoing and mistakes.
    Whenever I experience this state of gratitude, I become very sociable. Well, to be honest, I have never been a very talkative person most of the time, but I become somehow eager to accommodate others, because there seems to be a togetherness in the silence we share. This is so different from walking into a room full of strangers and being left to one's own devices, where the most compassionate statement a person might make is to the effect of 'where's your drink?' In the work of clubs and so on, alcohol is the way to soothe frayed nerves and kill free time. I think that there is also a sense of profound ease that arises after people have meditated together: a feeling that prior to any conversation or discussion, we have already done something very significant together, and no words need be exchanged to validate that experience.
   I think this kind of sociability is much more interesting and compassionate than the kind that we often see in parties or bars, because it no longer becomes about finding out what a person does and then evaluating a person by way of their status. Rather, there is a much more subtle and sensitive state where a person can completely accept their situation alongside those of others. Perhaps it's equanimity (upekka), but I am thinking it's an ideal sort of social state that not too many people attune to in this rushed sort of society.