It’s in this inner world where the Buddha talks about touching deathless with the body. This is what he means: The deathless is something that will appear in your inner world. There’s that possibility, too, right here.

"If you focus on the area inside, you don’t have to conflict with anybody. No one is going to move into your territory. No one can evict you and take over your place — except for the fact that the body will evict you from the body at some point. Otherwise, you’re in this world wherever it goes. It’s your territory. So you want to make sure that it’s in order, and it’s not creating a lot of suffering for itself. It’s in a world that has lots of potentials for suffering, but also potentials for happiness. It’s in this inner world where the Buddha talks about touching deathless with the body. This is what he means: The deathless is something that will appear in your inner world. There’s that possibility, too, right here.

So try to stay as grounded as you can right here, as sensitive as you can — sensitive not only in sense of sensing what’s going on, but also in the sense of understanding. When something happens, if there’s any pain, any suffering: Why? What can be done about it?

It’s amazing that the Buddha focused on this as the big issue of his teaching. Of course, that’s because he saw this is the area where the teaching was most needed. Not only is this a sign of the Buddha’s great understanding, but also of his compassion. The problem of suffering is right in here. It’s nowhere else. Other people have their suffering, but you can’t sense their suffering, you don’t have to suffer from it. You can suffer vicariously, but the real suffering is what you experience from within. But he saw that there were common patterns even though everyone’s in his or her own world. So it was possible to teach people. He saw that suffering was the big problem that weighs down on the hearts of all beings and he made that the focus of his Dhamma. He had found what works, and he wanted to share it with us. So it’s up to us to open our hearts and bring it in — to where the work needs to be done."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Your Breath, Your Territory"