We're going to look at something very unique today,
And I would urge you,
If nothing else,
To just see if the shoe fits,
As the expression goes.
If it does,
Wear it.
If it doesn't,
Go to another store,
But I can guarantee you that what we will examine is right in front of our eyes at all times,
And all we need to do is start waking up a little bit to be able to see it.
So let's get into the material.
Kate,
If you will please bring up the talk title.
Everybody do read it with me.
It says,
For those who keep complaining,
It never stops raining.
For those who keep complaining,
It never stops raining.
The talk title is actually a key lesson.
It points to something that we don't see nearly as clearly as we should,
But that if we were able to understand its implication,
Which is what?
Somehow there's a relationship between the amount of complaining I do and the amount of rain that I wish I wasn't in,
But we don't see this relationship and we're going to look at it deeply together,
So let's get started.
First,
Imagine,
If you will,
And I have to kind of run through this briefly,
Imagine there's a,
You are someone or you know someone who is followed around,
Shall we say,
By what we would call a chronically negative person,
Someone who is quietly grumbling,
Mumbling to him or herself all the time,
And that in the moments of pitch mumbling and grumbling an outburst will take place,
And if it's not spoken,
Then behind the outburst is this idea,
No,
No,
That can't be the way it is.
That's not right.
Now what does this mean?
So that we are almost always in the presence of something that is in a perpetual relationship with the moment we're in,
And by its,
Shall we say,
Its determination,
We are forever being directed to meet the moment in that way.
So,
If you were in the presence of someone who was like that all the time,
And let's just start by asking how many of you know that you do have a little bit of a grinch,
A little bit of an imp,
Call it what you will,
A little shadowy creature that's always suffering for something because something's not right,
Yeah,
So if you were and you knew that,
How long before,
And in this story we'll say the person or hero finally recognizes,
You know,
This isn't any good,
And she turns around and she says,
Who are you and why are you following me around?
Which one day you will have to ask this in some respect,
And the little imp,
The little person following her around says,
I guess you don't remember,
You must not recall,
And you say,
She says,
Recall what?
And the little imp says,
You hired me.
Now,
Who would believe for a split second that the thing that troubles us the most we're paying for,
In one respect,
To trouble us?
That doesn't even seem remotely possible,
Does it?
If we're honest,
You can't say that I'm actually investing and paying for something that goes before me all the time to tell me why it isn't the way it's supposed to be,
And yet we're about to see whether or not that's true,
Because if it is,
It will explain a lot.
Everybody tracking,
Please,
Because I'm going to get into this now.
So,
I have a question for you.
It's a simple one.
What is the one thing that most of us do at least a dozen times a day,
If not a hundred,
That quietly perpetuates some form of pain that we're in,
But yet feels so natural,
If not innocent,
And always justified,
If actually not necessary in that moment?
And yet,
The thing that we do that feels natural,
Innocent,
Justified,
Ensures that whatever is troubling us in that moment goes on.
So,
What is the one thing most of us do every day in a thousand different ways,
Whether said out loud or not,
That actually ensures the very pain,
The very unhappiness that we're resisting in that moment?
Anybody want to venture a guess?
I've been hinting at it.
It's in the talk title.
If I was a teacher,
I'd be cheating on your behalf.
Yes,
Anne and everybody,
Complaining.
Complaining.
And I will add,
Not just outwardly,
Because some of us have learned to be stoic,
But inwardly,
A kind of ceaseless,
Silent commentary about what isn't right,
Or how they shouldn't be this way,
Or what's wrong with this,
Everything.
Always a mumbling and grumbling by some little person that seems to have a required place in our reality,
And yet,
We can begin to realize that the place we have given it is also the source of the punishment we receive from it.
Everybody still following me?
Because I'm going to go now to the first of our key lessons.
Read along with me,
Please.
If you want a misery-backed guarantee,
The painful relationship you have with whatever troubles you about someone or with something will never change.
Just keep complaining to yourself about it.
Just stop with me for a second.
How did we get to a place where we believe that the appearance of a painful complaint in us is the same as taking action to change what we believe is the condition blamed for that pain?
Because when I was sitting here prior to coming on to talk to you,
I realized,
You know,
We have become a master race of complainers.
If you look at everything,
Large and small,
Politically,
Religiously,
Across the board,
All you have is a people who have a list of complaints.
And my complaints are better than yours and more valid than yours,
Which makes me right.
But when anybody has a complaint,
Especially if you and I know is true about ourselves and our complaints,
Our complaint is part of our righteousness.
I wouldn't have this complaint if it weren't valid.
Can you see that with me before I go on,
Please?
Can you see that the whole thing is in front of us all the time because we don't see it?
It's within us.
So here's a fact we don't see yet as such,
But we must.
I'm asking you now,
Really let this sink in.
It is impossible to feel dissatisfied with any moment without something yet realized waiting in an unconscious mind with its constant mechanical measurement to determine that what it is measuring,
In fact,
Doesn't fit what is expected to go into that moment.
So that this dissatisfaction cannot be separated from a ceaseless act of comparison that,
In turn,
Doesn't exist without some condition,
Sense of ourself that incarnates its judgment every time it's brought up,
Stirred back into existence.
Because each event,
If you can see it,
I guarantee you one day you'll recognize this.
There's only so many events,
And most of us determine the goodness or the badness,
The rightness or wrongness of the event by a summary measurement,
A judgment of it,
That takes place even as the thing is occurring.
And then this sense of self that knows it's in the right to complain or that it has the right to complain,
It is validated by the judgment that it has been given of that moment.
I hope that's not too complex.
I'll explain it now a little further.
Katie,
Let's bring up the second key lesson.
Please follow me,
Everybody.
The real source of dissatisfaction is being identified with an unconscious mind that never stops comparing what is to what should be,
Where it is at once both the condition it resists and the conditioned resistance to it.
The nature that complains finds its complaint in a process of comparing what it has imagined should be against what it sees as not taking place the way it's imagined.
So this nature has a condition it blames and it resists,
And it cannot see that what it is resisting isn't the moment,
But what it is that it expected out of it.
So it's locked in a situation in the darkness of itself where this enduring illusion,
It just goes on and on,
That we need to see as an illusion,
Which is what?
I've been outlining it.
The principal source of all our psychological suffering is because we have been conditioned to believe that our painful reaction to an unwanted moment somehow proves that not only are we other than the moment we don't want,
But that there's an alternative to our experience of it.
Let me go over it again.
Psychological suffering,
The basis of it,
Is because we live from a nature so deeply conditioned to react to anything that doesn't comply with its demand,
So that out of that comparison,
This painful reaction comes up,
And now this reaction proves that I'm not the same thing I'm reacting to,
This moment that I don't want,
And how do I know that I'm other than the moment I don't want is because my experience of this reaction says that it could have happened otherwise,
Or it should have,
Or it will when I finally get things straightened out.
Take a breath here.
Are you following me?
Are you seeing this?
It's perfectly logical in one respect,
But the question is,
What do I do?
How do I understand how this plays itself out in my life?
Because it does all the time.
So I want to loosely explain something to you,
And that's the best that can be done,
Especially in the short time we have together on this board.
Haven't you ever wondered,
And I hope that you have,
How is it that I can go into a moment,
Maybe even feeling good,
Kind of happy to be going or doing something,
And then something will happen,
Some little comment,
Something I catch out of the corner of my eye,
And in a heartbeat,
Without having any notion at all,
I go from someone,
A certain kind of I that is content,
Into another sense of self,
A certain kind of I that is conflicted,
Where I wasn't aware of any problem,
Now I am against something that just happened,
And I don't see that what just happened,
There's no way I could be against it,
Unless,
In quotes,
Something in me knew it wasn't supposed to happen that way.
So that loosely,
Again,
We live within an unconscious nature,
And it within us,
There's no separation that way,
That is a kind of a matrix of old thoughts and conditioned memories that live,
In quotes,
That dwell in a constant state of potential.
These old thoughts,
These memories,
In a constant state of potential inside of what we could call a passive field,
A kind of quantum field of energies that have positive and negative charges to them,
And that basically wait until an event comes along,
Something that causes a reaction in that field,
And then the moment that takes place,
As that energy enters into the interaction,
Suddenly we have a picture,
We have an idea,
We have a notion of what it is that just happened,
And we derive our identity out of what appears in that field,
That was preconditioned to express the discontentment that it does,
When anything comes into it that brings up the latent nature of a self that never stops complaining because it can't keep life lined up with the way it imagines it should go.
I know that's deep,
I'm asking you to see something maybe you've never considered before,
But I'm telling you that's the truth.
The words may be not quite right,
I didn't have time to sort it all out when I'm talking.
How can I be unhappy,
Anxious,
Fearful,
When a moment that actually has no meaning,
Other than the meaning I give it?
Every moment is clean,
It's pure,
It's innocent,
There is no such thing as a moment defiled by anything other than the nature that reacts to it,
Colors it the dark colors that it does,
And then says,
Look at that,
And it's looking at itself.
And whether we see it or not,
It is actually complaining about the content of itself,
As if complaining proves it's other than the condition it experiences as it goes through that content.
I want to let it set in a little bit.
We are always being influenced without any awareness whatsoever,
That what we call the present moment and our experience of it,
Is not our present moment,
And it is not our experience of it.
Rather,
We are so used to remanding ourselves over,
Giving our attention away to anything that catches it and grabs it in some familiar tone or color.
And then the moment that we have entered into that relationship with that field that is generating mechanically what it does,
What comes out of it,
It's preconditioned.
And that becomes the nature of our consciousness.
Where a summary identification with what?
A resistance,
A reaction of resistance.
Isn't that what happens?
Here comes a moment.
I don't know I'm going to resist that.
I mean,
Please,
Have you ever been?
I was out with my daughter and son-in-law and my wife to a nice restaurant that I had explained had wonderful service,
A great kitchen,
So forth and so on.
And for some reason,
We wound up waiting like 40 minutes.
Now,
Did I think to myself,
Fortunately,
You know what,
When you go here for this nice experience,
It's going to turn into something you want to complain about.
To yourself and maybe to others,
God help them.
How does an evening that one should be grateful for turn into something that one complains about?
And by the way,
And almost never just stops complaining,
Because I know for a fact that the next time the thought comes,
Let's go to that restaurant,
It will be visited by a conditioned memory of some kind of misery that was created by a nature that had demanded it be the way it's supposed to be.
So that's this reaction with resistance and creates at once,
What is what?
Creates at once,
What is being judged.
The service creates the judge,
Measuring and comparing the service to the last time.
And then it creates the sentencing.
What that judge determines needs to be done,
Which is let somebody know that this wasn't right and so forth and so on.
All that terrible things that human beings do to one another out of their unhappiness,
Not that if something was inappropriate,
You wouldn't make note of it,
But you would never make misery out of it,
Let alone someone else.
So that where the reaction to this moment is taken is what?
It's the only possible outcome.
The way I feel,
The complaint I have is in fact,
The only possible outcome to a moment like this.
And if you can see that,
Because in that moment,
Judge,
Jury and sentencing is all one thing.
It's never wrong.
It's never wrong.
It's unbelievable.
How can a human being expect to grow,
Let alone outgrow this old nature,
If in fact something is telling them,
Walking along beside them,
Complaining about something and then telling them,
You're right to complain and you are always right.
You're never wrong.
Even when you don't feel so good about yourself or other people.
Do you see this?
I'll stop for a moment because I'm going to go to the next key lesson in a minute.
So let's bring up the third key lesson,
Kate,
Please.
Read along with me,
Everybody.
We're building an understanding.
Complaints justify the unseen judge of the moment.
Complaints justify the unseen judge of the moment.
It is,
That judge,
A stressed sense of self that never weighs anything other than what some negative reaction presents as evidence of its right to feel wronged.
Complaints justify the unseen judge of the moment.
Have you ever complained where you didn't think you were justified in the complaint?
And so who is justified in the complaint?
The judge of the moment.
And the judge of the moment doesn't exist until some moment brings it out of this unconscious nature,
Because this unconscious nature has decided before the event,
He,
They,
This,
That should not be this way,
And therefore you're right to tell them they're wrong.
Even in that moment,
Which is critical for us to address,
If you're following me,
In fact,
Let's do it this way.
There's a question,
I suppose,
That if we answer it as honestly as we can,
And then with the honesty that we are able to touch,
Dare to apply that honest new insight into a moment when we start to complain.
If we can answer this question,
And get ready,
Because this is a big one,
We're making a huge transition here.
If we see,
And I'll ask you before I get to it,
If we see,
If you can see,
That complaining absolutely does nothing other than keep in place the unconscious nature that never stops complaining,
Then I will ask you,
Why,
If we see that,
Do we keep complaining?
First,
Do we see that to some extent?
I know we're not going to summarily say,
Well,
You know,
I was abused,
And I have the right to be complaining about that.
Oh,
What a world it would be if instead of complaining,
We were busy allowing that nature to be changed by what interacts with it.
If we can see complaining changes nothing,
Why in the name of God do we keep doing it?
I'm going to let the question rest for a minute.
Why in the name of God would I keep doing something that doesn't just hurt me,
But that obviously burdens others as I ask them to share in my suffering,
Where it changes absolutely nothing except for what?
The next condition that that complaint will come out of it.
Why do we keep complaining?
I hope you're at least considering the question.
I'm looking at the answers,
And of course,
Some of it is right,
Because it's connected to your interest in this topic and what you may have seen.
But here's the real answer,
And it's a bit of a stunner.
So please don't reject it.
The reason that we keep complaining is because something in us is comforted by being the judge of the moment we don't want.
The reason we keep complaining,
Even though we say we know that it's not right for us or others,
Is because something in us is comforted by being the judge of the moment that we don't want.
I'll show you if you're willing to watch.
First,
When I complain about something,
Who's responsible for it?
Not me.
I'm the one who's being acted against.
No.
When I complain,
That responsibility is placed outside of me.
You're responsible.
It's responsible for this conflict that I feel,
For this anxiety I'm in.
So I'm actually comforted by the very thing that is creating this conflict,
Because it creates the illusion that the experience of the moment is other than the consciousness experiencing it.
Tell me you're following me,
To some extent.
Here's another way in which we're comforted by complaining.
Have you ever complained about something and thought to yourself,
You know,
Guy,
You're not right for complaining about that.
Or when we complain,
Does the complaint prove the validity of the judge?
And the answer is,
Of course it does.
When I complain,
It proves I'm right.
You're wrong.
I know you don't.
I'm comforted.
I'm comforted by the assumption and by the way,
The condition experience.
Of course,
I'm righteous.
You're wrong.
Another way we're comforted by complaining,
Doesn't complaint validate the negativity I'm experiencing?
So that I'm actually not experiencing directly the reaction and the resistance.
Instead,
I'm experiencing that which validates you as the one who's bringing this up in me.
Because if you weren't bringing it up in me,
I'd have nothing to complain about.
Complaining feels constructive.
That's the mind blower.
When we're complaining,
You have to look at it yourself.
I can't do this for you.
I won't.
When we're complaining,
I actually feel like I've sorted out all the problems.
I know who needs to do this,
What needs to change.
When I'm complaining,
I've got it straightened out.
I'm taking a constructive action.
Another way that complaining seems to prove in one way or another that there's comfort in it.
When we complain,
Yes or no,
Doesn't it suggest that we care about what we're complaining about?
I wouldn't say this to you in this tone if I didn't care about you,
It says.
When what you know you're doing is complaining about their nature that brings up in you that complaining nature.
Again,
Not accepting the behavior of others that is abusive.
But even if it is,
What has that got to do with being negative?
What has that got to do with complaining and complaining?
Isn't that the story of all the things all these abusive relationships?
Of how I abuse myself with drugs or alcohol or whatever the substance may be.
I complain nonstop.
I judge myself without ceasing.
I do everything I can to make you see,
But I change nothing.
All I do is complain.
And that's the last way in which complaining comforts us.
When we're complaining,
Man,
Does it feel sincere?
I'm very sincere in this complaint.
Complaining doesn't prove anything other than what you are,
Other than that we are sincerely deluded that somehow or other,
Complaining about a condition has the authority to change the consciousness responsible for its constant reincarnation.
Everybody still trailing?
Still following?
Let's bring up the fourth key lesson,
Everybody.
Read along with me,
Please.
We're building an important understanding.
Here's the fourth key lesson.
Stay with me.
The suffering inherent in judging anyone,
Any moment,
Hides behind the temporary comfort of knowing who or what is to be blamed for the pain.
So much so that we're unable to see that being judged is the punishment.
The suffering inherent in judging anyone,
Any moment,
Hides behind a temporary comfort of knowing who or what is to be blamed for this pain.
And it's so blinding,
It's so strangely comforting,
And so identified are we with that side of the story that we're unable to see that being judged is the punishment.
Because from where does the judge come?
The judge comes out of comparison.
And from where does the comparison come?
From a mind that is measuring what it says just happened against what it imagines should have happened.
And when these two don't meet,
The way in which it gets rid of the pain that it's in in that conflict,
In the content of itself,
Is it starts to judge the moment because now I'm other than this thing I'm complaining about when we are inseparable from the complaints we make because the consciousness making them is what we become identified with.
I want it to land.
If you're starting to really see something,
You should feel a certain kind of silence come over you,
Which is always the indication of anything that is beautiful and true.
It isn't more agitation.
It isn't confusion.
It is a kind of surrendering of all that I thought I knew because now I see I didn't.
And if I see that clearly,
As in the case of complaining,
Then somehow or other I realize I have no other relationship to this moment other than to become the one who sees the truth of it because I don't know anything else.
The suffering inherent in judging anyone any moment hides behind the comfort of that sense of self of I know,
I know who did,
I know why they didn't,
I know all of this.
And in that identification with being someone who knows the problem,
We can't see that the one who knows the problem is in fact the one who has made it.
The judge,
That entire nature as it operates the way that it does.
I'm ready to move on to the last part of this talk if you all are still ready.
Okay.
Now,
Where have we come to?
What is what we are seeing,
God willing,
Promoting inside of us?
What do I make out of even a suspicion that what the speaker is saying is true?
That I complain because it keeps me from seeing my complicity with this unconscious nature that is never not there.
I want to describe it more deeply.
Do you know how,
And I've heard some students speak of this recently,
If I'm not distracted by something or deliberately giving my attention to a moment,
If we're attentive,
We can feel a kind of constant tumult in what we would call ourselves.
The constant tumult in what we would call ourselves is not ourselves,
But creates a string of selves,
Each and every one dedicated to resolving whatever is blamed for that tumult,
Which changes moment to moment to moment.
We can drive in our car and not see a hundred different judgments take place.
Each and every one confirms that what I am judging is not up to par with the judge so that I'm constantly confirming and being comforted by a nature that I cannot see is the source of my unhappiness itself.
Because as long as I'm identified with it and with its movement and what comes out of that field moment to moment,
Each object that is created,
Each thought that takes on the shape and form and the content of what it momentarily becomes,
Then so go I.
Every moment,
A different sense of self,
Something I will probably talk about next Saturday,
If not tomorrow.
So let's summarize this a bit.
We're seeing something that's staggering.
I'm so unhappy when I'm complaining and I wouldn't complain if I wasn't unhappy.
And yet the real source of the unhappiness is that I live with and identify constantly with the content of this field,
With its conditioning,
With all the various shapes and forms amorphous as they are until suddenly they are resurrected and it is resistance that resurrects them.
Make the note.
It isn't love that resurrects a complaining nature,
Is it?
But I'll complain about someone not loving me and I complain someone doesn't love me because they don't love me the way I demand to be loved.
So resistance resurrects the complainer.
The complaining nature sits in the darkness of that matrix with all of its endless potential in a latent form until something kinetic takes place and out pops this discontented self and blames everything around it and complains about everything around it because as it does that it proves to that nature that it is other than the thing it's judging.
Now if we can see that,
Even suspect it,
Because that's all you can start with,
Then what do we come to in this meeting together?
We are not asked to suppress complaints.
You were told as a kid,
You should be grateful,
Don't complain.
And so sitting behind that smile,
Behind what you say is your love of life,
Is something that's already measured and determined.
Not only is life not the way it's supposed to be,
But it's measured you as someone who must be a bad person if you're feeling this complaint inside of yourself.
And so the solution is to go deeper into conflict and reject the presence of this angry compulsive complaining nature so that at least I can identify with the comfort and be consoled by this image that I momentarily identified with.
This goes on all the time like that.
So we are not being asked to suppress or to repress complaints.
No suppress complaints.
We're repressed because we suppress.
What we are asked in fact is to be willing to see the true nature of that moment,
The true nature of the judge that makes that moment and out of that matrix,
The misery that produces this complaining.
So how do we do that?
We're going to summarize this a little bit.
Number one,
Can you see,
I'm going to ask,
I'll just go as slow as I can.
Can you see that complaints are judgments?
Can there be a complaint without a judgment?
Right?
There cannot be a complaint without a judgment of the moment.
Everybody understand that?
Okay.
So,
All right.
So there's been a judgment of the moment.
Now that doesn't seem strange to us.
I said earlier,
You know,
It seems pretty natural to judge this moment.
But if we know that complaints are born of the appearance of a judgment,
Then what do we know about judgments?
Because I've just judged the moment.
I've just judged you.
I've just judged myself.
Where does that judgment come from?
Because the judge is there.
Here comes the judge.
Judge is there,
Right?
Where does the judgment come from?
Well,
Let's see.
Where does that judgment come from?
Oh,
Something in me is comparing the moment to what the moment should have been.
How else could I know it should be judged?
It doesn't live up to what I came into that moment expecting it to be.
So in the moment of that comparison,
There's this conflict clearly,
And that my summary judgment wouldn't exist without something taking one side or another of that comparison.
Do you see that?
I don't want to go on until we're all on the same page.
Complaints are judgment.
Judgments come from comparison,
Unconscious comparison.
Now,
What is the nature of this comparison that is so compelling?
Because it is compelling,
Isn't it?
You're sitting there.
Have you ever noticed?
I want you to notice.
I want you to actually see for yourself that complaints are compulsive.
No one complains in a peaceful state.
Complaints are compulsive.
But we don't know they're compulsive because we're comforted by separating ourselves from what we blame for that urgency that we feel.
So judgment comes from comparison,
And comparison comes from what?
Comparison comes in the moment where this unconscious nature that believes it is blind justice,
Where it identifies with one side or another of what it has compared.
So my identity becomes a derivative of this comparative nature,
Failing to see that any identity born out of comparison must by its very nature be in a constant state of flux,
Constant conflict.
So now I've come this far.
Okay,
So I'm identified.
You know what?
I'm identified with the way this is supposed to be.
I don't think I'm identified with how you're supposed to be.
And how do I learn that I'm identified with how you're supposed to be that brings up these complaints in me?
How do I learn that when you're not the way you're supposed to be,
When that restaurant wasn't the way it was expected to be?
So I was already identified with something.
We're already identified with whatever it is that we find dissatisfactory because we wouldn't feel dissatisfied if,
In fact,
That moment we're living up to what we expect.
So identification creates resistance.
Can you see that much?
Because we got to go to the next step.
Resistance does what?
Resisting,
Resistance validates and sustains the suffering that is the creation of this unconscious nature.
So first there's a complaint based on a judgment.
The judgment,
I don't see it,
Is born out of this matrix of unconscious comparison.
Out of that comparison,
There's this conflict because I'm identified with this.
You can't serve two masters,
Said Christ.
You'll love one and despise the other.
So now I'm identified with want,
Not want,
Yes or no.
And that identification does what?
It cements me in a place where that resistance will become added on to.
Because the more sure I am that I'm right in my judgment and the complaint that I have,
The more I lean into that particular nature and that identity when similar conditions come along.
So this resistance doesn't just create,
But sustains the suffering.
Are you following the lineage here?
The makeup of this matrix?
So if we can cut from the top to the beginning,
We can see complaints are born of resistance that creates the suffering that that nature then blames on something outside of itself,
When there couldn't be resistance to a new moment if it weren't met by something old in us.
Now,
The task is,
Can I at least suspect my own complaints from this point forward?
Can I begin to suspect when the complaining starts to rev up?
God,
It's so deep.
All the time I watch,
Wherever I am,
But in particular places I watch and these children,
These teenagers,
They have every imaginable physical gift they can be given in this Western culture as it is and where they are brought up in that environment of somewhat abundance.
And they're inwardly complaining.
They're talking to themselves.
Their mouths and face start to take on that position that happens when they have to do something they don't want to do.
And their mind,
Because of the way it's bound to this hive mind that creates these social sites that a person becomes,
Without knowing it,
A kind of a succubus where the whole of my life is determined by how I respond to the material that I'm constantly shifting through so I can never sense it.
I mean,
It just goes on and on if you can see it.
And if I can see any of this,
In particular,
When I start to feel this complaining start,
If I can see anything that I've described to you in some amount,
That nature begins to lose its authority.
That complaining nature,
That dark unconscious matrix with its lesion of preconditioned thoughts and feelings,
Past experiences,
Expectations,
So that it all coalesces.
And if I can even start to see that that's true,
Then to some extent,
Suddenly I am no longer interested in what I'm complaining about.
Now I have begun to be,
I've begun becoming interested in what in the name of God is going on that I would believe for a split second that there's any value in complaining.
And I know some of you,
I know you well.
Yeah,
But if I don't complain,
How are things going to change?
What a crock.
You've been complaining your whole life.
It's so convenient to have an enemy,
Isn't it?
It's so easy to be for or against something and never suspect that the nature that is for something must be against something else,
And therefore it's in constant conflict with anything that challenges its assumption,
Its identity.
But if I can begin just to suspect,
You know what?
Where's the value in this complaining?
Because if I can,
Then something remarkable begins to happen.
And this is,
If you will,
The big tell.
Anytime we hear or sense the presence of something mumbling,
Grumbling,
Some kind of dissatisfaction about what's not right,
Or if we can catch ourselves,
God willing,
In the act of wanting someone to join in our pain parade by sharing what we're unhappy about with them,
Our complaints.
Remember this.
It's the big tell.
Let's bring up the last key lesson,
Kate,
Please.
Complaints are the voice of compulsive resistance.
They are the defender of all painful negative reactions.
Complaints are the voice itself of compulsive resistance.
As such,
It is the defender of all painful negative reactions.
You hear the voice of the complaint.
You listen for the vibration of that discontent as it starts to coalesce in this consciousness,
And you can feel the vibration of it to actually begin becoming aware of,
You know what?
I think that what's talking to me is me.
It's so familiar.
It's so habitual to listen to that voice,
Talk about what's this and what's that,
All the questions it asks,
And all the time it is being comforted because it believes that it is other than the condition it judges,
And we now know better than that.
So use the voice.
Use the thoughts.
Use those feelings to become aware of what is the voice of compulsive resistance,
And you will see if you even try to step out of it the truth of the statement that it's compulsive because it will come and say,
Come back here.
I need you,
And you'll be right back with that little person that follows you around,
Talking about all the pain that it's in for whatever reason,
And if we see this,
I've got to end.
We enter in that moment.
If we realize this voice,
This thought,
This feeling is born of this resistance,
Then in that moment,
I'm going to enter into the awareness of a silence.
This is what we must do as best it can be described.
Enter the awareness of silence and remain there until you start to see something of that matrix of that complaining self because as we see that matrix,
As we see the misery that it creates,
By the very awareness of it,
We then have no choice but to agree to die to its unhappiness,
And it will be unhappy with that choice,
But that must be the choice we make and not something that we go into deciding,
But rather that we discover the need for as we venture into and through this journey that we're on together.
Do your work.
Complaints are the voice of compulsive resistance.
Wait a minute.
I'm not going to be compelled into anything,
And then you try to step out and you'll become conscious of all that has been acting against you while telling you that it's been acting in your favor.
