7. Watch thought-clouds float by and your pain is gone

Every sage throughout history has seen the same thing and reported it: Thoughts cause our suffering. Investigate them, question them, and we get back to the peace and happiness that’s always there, under the surface. If you doubt that thoughts cause your suffering notice how peaceful you are in deep sleep. Everyone likes to wake in the morning and say, “Boy, I sure had a great sleep.” Was there any worry or fear in sleep? Depressed people sleep a lot. Why? In sleep there’s not the pain that comes from attaching to thoughts.

Dating seniors have no more thoughts than anyone else. But maybe, as seniors with more time on our hands, we mull over our thoughts too much. We let them eat at us. And we hurt. However we look at it, when we’re disappointed or sad or lonely or feeling abandoned we can consider that like a cow bell ringing, saying “Lookie here, your thoughts are off track.” Let’s take a look at thoughts and thinking just a bit to see if what we’ve thought about thinking is true.

Where do thoughts come from? They show up the minute you wake up don’t they? You don’t ask for them. You don’t even have a choice. They just appear. If they were our thoughts wouldn’t we be able to turn them on and off? And if they were ours would we ever choose sad, lonely or hurtful thoughts? Obviously not.

Maybe you’re “being thought”

Wow, now there’s a thought: If we don’t own our thoughts, who does? Is it possible that you’re just “being thought”? Just like you’re being breathed and your heart beats by itself? Well, wait a minute. What’s going on here? If I’m not doing this who or what is? Hmm, quite a mystery isn’t it? And that’s the point. It IS a mystery, just like the mystery of what keeps the planets in orbit. Or the mystery of a universe that has no edges, and therefore no center. That’s why we call it a mystery; we just see that it IS but that’s all we know.

So thoughts appear and they’re not yours. Furthermore, when you look at thoughts it’s easy to see that they often don’t match reality. For instance, you’re on a date with someone and when it’s over you keep thinking how distant and aloof she was toward you. You think, “I probably said or did something she didn’t like.” You ponder the situation and go over and over in your mind what you must have done wrong. Later you find she was distracted because she’d just learned that her small grandson needed a worrisome operation. She wasn’t being cold and aloof; she was worried and preoccupied. Her behavior had nothing to do with you. But look what believing in your thoughts did!

We’ve all had similar examples in our lives. Our thoughts about something were way off, just flat wrong! So we really can’t trust our thoughts, though most of the time we live as though we can. The result is unhappiness. When you start to just notice your thoughts without getting attached to them, you begin to see how much they control your level of happiness. Someone says something rude to you and you feel bad. You get a compliment and you feel good. You think their opinion of you is accurate don’t you? If you didn’t, why would you let their words dictate your opinion of yourself? It isn’t what they said, it’s just your own thoughts about what they said that are the culprit. Crazy isn’t it?

Pure Awareness isn’t ruffled by thoughts

But… as you watch your thoughts and how your happiness hinges on your belief in those thoughts you might ask another question: “Who’s doing the watching?” There must be something separate from thoughts that can see there ARE thoughts. That separate seeing must be just that sense of knowing that you are, that you exist. You might also notice it doesn’t have an opinion, it’s not ruffled by thoughts. It’s just the quiet background that allows thoughts to show up, like space allows “things” to show up, yet is invisible itself.

So let’s get practical. What’s this have to do with your everyday dating life? Just this. Instead of buying in to thoughts and getting upset by them, there’s another way. You could simply stay in that presence/awareness that watches thoughts, and just let thoughts come and go as they will, and always do. You start to notice that believing what you thought were “my” thoughts hasn’t made life happy or made it work any better. You begin to see through that illusion and realize they’re not “your” thoughts. They’re just thoughts. They show up in the content of life just like clouds and trees and everything else. They’re not accurate so why not just notice them and stay happy in the presence of the moment? Who knows, it could work! With their happy, peaceful lives, the Wise Ones have proven it through the centuries.