End Suffering on Grievance

by Judith Anderson

     A new perspective on suffering came up at the Christmas 2024 banquet, when Laureen mentioned studying grievances. The study of grievances is valuable, as it can spur us to examine anew our many negative gripes and grumblings.
     The mind likes to keep accounts of how it’s been hurt and who “done me wrong.” Or to regret how a current situation ought to be different than it is. It sounds trivial when put into words, but the false self still has a great time recalling and reliving complaints and has much difficulty giving up these feelings of dissatisfaction. Because after all, that is “who I am,” exactly what the false personality is constructed from, “the troubles I’ve known.” [Violins, please.] It is a giant illusion built on the shaky foundation of false memories and wrong certainties that those events are “me.” This is sick self-pity, reviving perceived “wrongs” to keep self-reference going, for that allows me to growl and vibrate.
     We don’t seem to make the connection that we are causing our own pain. In a talk Vernon said that “pain comes from your own stored up ideas of what is owed to you” [4/26/89].  In my dictionary, grievance is synonymous with suffering, as well as with perceived injustices. My old pal complaint is now justified, for this event should not have happened to innocent me. I object to reality. “Life is hard.” I may also cling to the grievance as a grudge for future recycling to get more thrills — to my own destruction. The cliche “nursed a grudge” acknowledges how suffering is deliberately prolonged.
     Recently there was a plumbing leak in the unit above my condo which was dripping into my ceiling vent. Foreseeing the cleanup, I asked the HOA maintenance woman and her plumber, who came on a reconnaissance, to come down after they were finished upstairs and wipe out my ceiling vent. Hours later I found out the leak was fixed but no help came. “The letter of the law” was invoked by another maintenance company lady for the upstairs rental who said she couldn’t allow her plumber into another unit. As the buck was passed, yet another maintenance company man eventually came to my unit and quickly mopped up the vent. Judith became impatient while making and receiving multiple phone calls to get it done. When finally seeing the agitation, it was dropped and became simply another challenge to solve a problem caused by a water leak and human rules.
     These wrong thoughts and emotions must be cut off much faster than we usually do. We must do better — cut it off instantly! The choice is do I drop it, leaving it as pure memory, or do I carry it forward as a grudge and enter it in my account ledger? A small grievance can expand into a big one when the mind is allowed to spin in an endless loop, repeating an incident over and over. The grievance committee on the lower mental level thinks it needs to mull over and resolve issues mentally or table them for further consideration. No, we need to shut up and receive instant resolution, natural knowing and healing.
     Our focus must shift quickly from habitually blaming others and life to working where the problem and solution exist — inside the self and its wrong thinking. Vernon Howard once said, “The event occurred, but not to you!” We can work to separate the event from the supposed “self,” and just see it as an impersonal happening utterly divorced from any fictitious “me.” This is the beginning of freedom for the emerging true self.