175. Dating in the Great Way is not difficult when we accept life as it is

Many, many people feel unfulfilled in love, including those who are married as well as single folks. They’re unhappy because they feel their “I want love” shopping bag isn’t full. Unfortunately, that shopping bag will never get full because it has a hole in it. People who feel they need love don’t see that that “need” will be there no matter how much attention and praise they get. Their “need” is not real. It’s only a thought that’s so persistent it seems real.

To hear that there’s peace when we see life as it really is seems pretty heartless at times. It’s not very romantic because it demands dropping our fantasies and dreams and ruthlessly seeing reality, which is nothing more than seeing what life is actually delivering, moment by moment. When you do that, however, you can’t help but realize that even if another person could supply our “love” needs they can also withdraw that supply. That leave us as poor waifs, waiting for our next savior.

So what do we do when we feel that a partner or lover would make life complete and we don’t have one? We could start by looking at reality instead of focusing on our fantasy thoughts. We could start by asking ourselves, “Has that longing ever worked? Has it ever eased our pain?” If not, do we want to keep feeding that thought?

On the other hand, accepting life as it is (which may at first sound impossible) can wipe out our pain in an instant. Looking through the eyes of practicality can we honestly say we know what should happen in our lives? Do we really know what’s best for us? Can we truthfully think we should be able to direct That which created and sustains us?

The Hsin-hsin Ming is an ancient spiritual text from China. It opens with these words:

"The Great Way is not difficult
For those not attached to preferences."

A few lines later it continues:

"If you wish to know the truth, then
Hold to no opinions for or against anything.

To set up what you like against what you dislike
Is the disease of the mind."

Maybe that revered spiritual text still has something to say to us all these centuries later. There’s calmness when we live by these words that invite us just to be still and allow what is to be the way it is – without our judgments, interpretations, and opinions.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

174. If we can’t direct our next thought can we know how our dating should go?

As we’ve matured and aged over the years we’ve picked up the idea that we’re somehow the center of the universe. We think life should revolve around our desires. We want it to be the way we think it should be.

If we look for the cause of all our problems it’s the self-centered “me” idea isn’t it? Every problem we have starts with “I” or “me”. When we’re in deep sleep and there’s no idea of a me, we don’t have a problem in the world. Yet we show up on this planet, live for 40 or 80 years, and think the universe should conform to our will. The problem with that is that the universe doesn’t care what we think so we suffer while we sputter and struggle to force things to go our way.

Look at a gnat. It’s born in the morning, mates in the afternoon and dies by nightfall. Could it even begin to imagine our life span? Can we, in turn, begin to imagine the life span of history, even as we hear about it being billions of years? In fact, when we came here did we come with an independent nature that can decide what’s right and wrong in our world? Does “me” have its own self-powered existence? Can we even have the thought of a “me” without that Life Force that props us up and breathes us?

“Me” and “my life” is just a thought, a concept. It has no independent nature and no actual substance. If we step back a few billion years how important are the desires and needs we think we have? Yet we pin them to this me-idea and often suffer mightily. Love relationships can highlight our suffering more than almost anything in life. Romantic love is deeply personal and intense so its pain can be immense.

But all that pain dissolves when the me-idea is seen through and we realize there is no independent “person” here who has to have life be a certain way. What if, instead, we lived life as a small child or an animal, simply seeing it and allowing it to be what it is. Then we could lighten up and see mature dating as an adventure, full of joy when we watch the show instead of trying to direct it. After all, in reality we can’t even direct our next thought. Doesn’t that give us a clue?

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

173. Any suffering in mature dating is just an invitation to see reality

At this mature stage of life you’ve seen, through experience, that affairs of the heart can be the most painful. The suffering of love is suffering at the top of the list. It can stop your whole life.

Of course we want it to go away; we’d give almost anything to stop the suffering because it hurts so badly. But there is a plus to suffering because it’s actually Unconditional Love inviting us to see reality. We’re being invited to see life as it really is, not the way we think it should be. As soon as we drop needing things to be “our way” and just accept them as they are, poof! all suffering evaporates. After all, it had no substance, no independent nature. It was only a thought, like the ghost under a child’s bed.

Whatever happens in your relationships with a date or partner – or with a relative or friend for that matter – is simply the way God or the Life Force is showing itself at that moment. We don’t often argue that the weather should be different. We know that’s insane. Without our judgments of good and bad, right and wrong, we can see life as it naturally is also. Nature is nature. It shows up as the weather, as the seasons of the year, as the in and out tides of the ocean, and as the functioning of humans, including you and me.

So suffering is really that gift that says, “Oops, you’re trying to play God, trying to make life be the way you want it rather than seeing it as it is.” In truth, do we ever really know, in the big picture, how “our” life should be? Isn’t it possible and even pretty likely that the Life Force that keeps the planets in place knows what it’s doing as it lives us? Your senior dating can be relaxed and enjoyable when you take yourself out of the judgment business and just watch life unfold, with all its magic, poetry, and mystery. You can live in the unknown, where every day is Christmas, offering gifts, surprises, and delights.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer