219. Answers to a reader’s questions: What does make happiness in mature dating?

An anonymous reader wrote yesterday asking for clarification of statements I’ve made in this blog about mature dating. The questions were good so I’m quoting them and hopefully providing some clarity here. Behind these questions is the assumption that we’re in charge of our lives. So let’s examine that assumption as we go through the reader’s questions.

Q. Why are we called sentient beings and insects are not? Don't we all digest food, our wounds heal, the natural functioning goes on? Sometimes I think you are describing a vegetative state here, insofar as humans are concerned. These things often happen in a vegetative state, so is that called happiness?

A. Yes, bodily functions often do go on naturally in a vegetative state but I’m referring to a conscious state, to normal, everyday living. If you were vegetative, meaning unconscious in my understanding of the word, you couldn’t be happy or unhappy because you would be unaware of feelings.

Happiness is the absence of resistant thoughts. When we’re not thinking something should be different we don’t have any problems and we don’t suffer emotionally. Without problems in life most people would think of themselves as happy, or content, or peaceful – whatever word you choose. That’s the happiness I’m talking about. It’s only when we step in to judge life that we feel so miserable. And judging means thinking that anything should be different.

Q. What happened to "effort"? Is it "effort" that makes one unhappy, therefore it is to be avoided?

A. Here’s an example of where the idea of a person who can make an effort shows up. Without that assumption of a person who has an opinion there is no effort to make life be a certain way. Rather than effort, which is designed to get a result we want, what I’m referring to is simply seeing life as it is, without an opinion about how it should be. When we see life as it is we make no effort and have no struggle and no pain. When we think something should be different, whether we think, “My date should have called” or “She shouldn’t be so friendly with that other guy” we set up our own suffering. What we haven’t noticed is that people do what they do and life is what it is. How do we know they shouldn’t be doing life “our” way? They’re not, that’s all. Reality is reality and to argue with it is mad. It’s already a done deal.

Q. I almost get the impression from your blog that any relationship will just move along all by itself. Is that true? What does that look like?

A. Yes, what I’m speaking of refers to relationships and to all of life. Life and relationships do move along by themselves. What it looks like is this: You’re sitting in a group having a conversation and without realizing it you cross your legs. If someone asks if you crossed your legs you’d probably say, “Well, I obviously did that but I sure don’t remember it.”

Or take seeing, for example. We say, “I see.” But do you have to do anything to make seeing start? Do you have to think: I want to see? Do your eyes have to decide to see? No, seeing happens by itself doesn’t it? So is it true that “I” see, any more than it’s true that “I” cross my legs, blink my eyes, digest my food, beat my heart or breathe my lungs? Even thoughts aren’t yours. Thinking happens. We have no idea what our next thought will be. And if we controlled thoughts would we choose to have sad or painful thoughts, sometimes continuing for days or months or years? “You” did none of those actions or thinking, yet it appears.

It’s the same with relationships, and we all know it from our own direct experience – things happen and we’re not in control. You have a huge fight with your date and you’re sure it’s over for both of you. Three days later you’re speaking again and you’re totally surprised. Or you’ve given up on dating or ever finding the right man. A week later you start talking to the guy in the supermarket checkout line and a year later you’re married to him. (This actually happened to a woman I know.)

Q. If nobody makes any effort, then the life force didn't want it to happen? I'm confused here. Perhaps you can clarify for me.

A. Yes, whatever effort or lack of effort that happens IS the Life Force doing what we call effort. It doesn’t involve anybody, any “me”. Action (that we call effort) happens or it doesn’t, just like rain happens or not. If movement (effort) is supposed to happen through somebody it will. You can make all the effort you want and not get what you’ve been striving for. So it isn’t effort or no-effort that produces results. Results simply show up as they are, just as effort shows up as it is.

The most important thing to realize is this: This is about seeing that we’re not independent individuals who have any independent control over anything. Who we are is not separate from the one, single power or life force that appears as everything, including you and me. Everything appears out of that silent stillness, that void, and returns to it. We exist and we know we exist. We can’t deny it for the simple reason that it would take presence to make a denial. So we’re present and we’re not the power behind our presence or our awareness of it.

Then thought appears on the scene and the little me gets in the picture, thinking it’s in control. We think we’re the doers when in fact life, including our life, is being done. We’ve simply shown up out of the silent stillness that’s the background of everything. That emptiness from which everything shows up is like space. Space can’t be seen, smelled, touched, tasted or objectified in any way. It has no boundaries, no center point, nothing you can describe. Yet you can’t argue that it’s there. Without space nothing could exist.

In the same way, without that silent, space-like emptiness or void, nothing could be. For you to even know you have a thought or have suffering there has to be something separate from suffering that knows it. That knowing is presence, your pure essence or what’s often called your natural state. We’re not separate from that emptiness, which I sometimes call the life force, or source or the absolute. (I seldom use “God” because the word has so many mixed connotations.).

In other words, we’re being lived. It’s only that thought of a “me” we think is separate from the source that’s behind all our suffering. When there is no “me” that assesses and judges everything, life can simply be seen as it is, without judgment, opinion, or interpretation. Of course, without judgment – thinking something needs to be modified or changed – we’re content, happy, at peace. We’re simply watching life unfold, including the life that unfolds AS “me”.

This way of seeing the reality of life applies to every aspect of every relationship and every moment of life – the life we’ve mistakenly thought was ours. Animals and very small babies already live in that natural functioning. They make no judgments. That’s why they’re content, happy, without problems. What else could you want in life but to be happy with everything just the way it is? Seeing life that way could there be any struggle and suffering?

See life as it is and you also see that peace and happiness is there, waiting, as it’s always been. We’ve never been anything but that Presence-Awareness thinking we were separate and had to struggle to make “our” life go. When the separation ends and there is no me-thought that wants life to be “my way” all suffering dies too. What’s left is happiness. Ahh, what a relief!

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer