132. You’ll have fun mature dating adventures if you don’t need more, bigger, better experiences

Part of the fun of mature dating is the new experiences it brings us. Maybe we meet someone who kayaks and we’ve never kayaked before and here’s our chance. Or we simply have the experience of being with a person we’re getting to know or that we’ve dated for some time and just enjoy being with.

For most of us we’ve spent our lives looking for new, bigger or better experiences. There’s nothing wrong with that unless that becomes our driving force, as it does in subtle or gross ways for most of us. We think life isn’t good unless we have more, faster, newer or better experiences, and the search is never-ending and stressful. The interesting fact about experiences is that while they come, they also go. The newness and excitement wears off. So we can never rest. We’re always on the prowl, always unsatisfied.

Instead of wanting experiences what I’ve seen is that what we’re really looking for is peace or happiness, and we think new experiences will give it to us. Yet when we stop to look we realize they never have – only for a short time. There is a place where you can always find ease and happiness, however. That’s when we simply relax into the beingness that is the background for all experiences. We could call that beingness the experiencING that allows all experiences to happen.

As an explanation consider seeing. When we see something we unwittingly split that up into the seer (us) and the seen (the object). We focus on the seen and the seer but we forget that the unwavering background of seeING itself comes first. It’s what allows anything to be seen. The seer and the seen flow out of seeING itself. There’s the appearance of three but it’s actually one.

In the same way experiencING comes before the experiencer or the experienced. The experiences always happen because first there was experiencING. Not a single experience could happen without that experiencing essence, just like there could be no furniture in the room you’re sitting in right now without the space that allows anything to be.

So while experiences come and go, that experiencing essence is always there. It’s who we are, that simple beingness or presence that is aware of itself. If I ask if you are present and aware you automatically say yes. You don’t have to think about it and no one has to tell you. That being/essence is who you are and you know it without question.

All experiences or events are the content (the furniture) in that space-like beingness or experiencing. As we enjoy experiences without being attached to them or having a need for new and bigger ones we can simply focus on the experiencING that watches all experiences. In words, we start any description of ourselves with “I am….”

When we relax into that ‘I amness’, that experiencing essence, we feel one with that because it’s our true nature. There’s a subtle warmth and ease, or sense of well-being in that. That’s constantly with us, always stable, always without stress. So no matter how many unsettling dating experiences we may have that can feel painful we’re always able to just relax back into our real nature and see that it’s not affected by any experience, good or bad. It needs nothing. It’s the calm background of experiencing or pure, space-like awareness. It’s like the screen a movie appears on, never affected at all by the movie, no matter how sad or painful it is.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer