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Hi, this is Margaret Meloni, and welcome to the Death Dhamma Podcast. In a series I used to read, occasionally one character would say to the other, may you live in interesting times. It was understood that this was a curse, where interesting times meant chaos and difficulty. Well, we do live in interesting times. I mean, don't we always? So this season together, we will explore equanimity and chaos, recognizing that many aspects of life are beyond our control. Let's find a sense of balance and peace amid external chaos. Hello, everyone. And let's think today together about change, Specifically how everything is different. And sometimes it's easy to complain a little bit, right? Because everything is different. Impermanence teaches us it's always going to be true. And many cultures and civilizations have understood this for decades, possibly even centuries, if not longer. It seems that here in the United States, because, you know, this is where I'm speaking to you from, we're reaching this collective recognition that our lives and our world are not the same and they're not going to be the same. And we have learned that grief is common and that we are all grieving something and that we do not all grieve the same things, and we don't grieve in the same way. This realization can lead us to a place of strength, or it can lead to empty complaining. So as I navigate impermanence with my friends and colleagues, I find myself contemplating a new mantra. Change is difficult. Complaining is easy. This is meant to be an observation, not a criticism, to remind myself and others that we have options. In this instance, the easy response is definitely not the best response. Complaining. You know, I think of it like junk food. We eat when we're hungry. It's a quick but temporary fix. It lacks nourishment. Fast food is full of sugar and starch and empty calories. Complaining is full of attachment and aversion. In the moment, it might feel good, but it really only leads to more suffering. Now, according to Merriam Webster, to be disappointed is to be defeated in expectation or hope. To complain is to express grief, pain, or discontent. Complaining can be seen as a natural extension of disappointment. You know that disappointment comes from attachment. In a practice where we are advised to sit with our feelings, to notice them, and to seek to be non judgmental of those feelings. Comparing complaining to fast food might seem judgmental. It's not wrong to feel grief, pain or discontent. It's not wrong to express those feelings. In fact, it helps us to recognize and remember the causes of our suffering. Right? So at this point, you might Be thinking, hey, Margaret, aren't you just complaining about complaining? You're not wrong. I have my own work to do, right? I have my own work to do around extending compassion to people I consider to be chronic complainers. And I notice the judgment that's, that's coming from me, right? The judgment when I'm using the label chronic complainers. But complaining is easy. The challenge with complaining, just like with fast food, is that it tricks you into accepting habits and a way of life that's unhealthy. Check out the 2004 documentary Supersize Me to learn about the outcome of eating fast food meals all day, every day for a month. The more fries you eat, the more French fries that you want. The more time that you spend complaining, the more that you train your mind to focus on the negative and the more that you will search for disappointment. I mean, I have friends who look for something to be disappointed in or upset in every day, and until they find that thing, they feel lost in their day. How do I know this? Because I've actually heard somebody say this out loud. I haven't decided what I'm going to be upset about today. So when you feel pain or discontent, you don't have to force it away. And when you need to vocalize your pain or discontent, do it. Let's just think though. How much is too much complaining? What do I mean when I say that complaining is easy? If you find that your thoughts are riddled with criticism of yourself or others or that your discussions center on all of your disappointments and all of your all of the things you don't like, please trust me, you are complaining too much. If your first response is to find fault with a person, a place or situation, you are complaining too much. If this is true for you, don't beat yourself up. Remember self compassion and as needed, you know, time with a trusted teacher or therapist. Because when I say, you know, change is difficult, complaining is easy. I mean it's easy to ignore the opportunity that impermanence has brought you. You can issue the complaint and move on, or you can do the deeper and more difficult work of really sitting with the source of your unhappiness. The first part of the mantra has two meanings. Change is difficult for most of us to accept and it is difficult to do the work of changing your habit of empty complaining and to change that into one of developing non attachment. What can you do to leverage this opportunity for growth? Notice what leads you to feel disappointment. You can do this while you meditate. You can do this While you go about your day, you might find journaling to be useful here. It certainly has helped me so much when I'm having a day where I just like everything seems off and I'm upset about many things. Journaling really helps me get straight and shows me where I'm clinging, where I'm having clinging and aversion. And I think it is easier to start with smaller issues, right? And you decide what is a smaller issue. That's up to you. Maybe you feel sad because your favorite coffee house has closed. What is behind that sadness? Why was it your favorite coffee house? And what does its closure mean? Because beyond having to buy coffee someplace else, as you dig more deeply into the source of your sadness and what it really represents, you can identify your attachment or aversion. Eventually you might learn that you are reacting to the fact that you're going to miss sitting and spending time with your friends. Or maybe their lavender latte helped you feel close to your deceased mother. When you first learn that the coffee house has closed, you will probably vocalize your disappointment. You will complain. Most of us need a gap of time between experiencing discontentment or grief and accepting our discontentment or grief. Allow yourself to feel your sadness or disappointment. This gap helps you process what you are feeling while you are in the gap. Be mindful of how often you complain and of your intentions. Ultimately, our goal is to shorten the gap, to be able to move more quickly from sadness to acceptance. You might continue to feel sadness as you move into acceptance. And how do you shorten the gap? By using your practice to develop equanimity. Yep, we're back to meditation and awareness and the Buddha's teachings. In case you were wondering where I was going with all of this, someone who can be in equanimity, you know, a state of equanimity all of the time, has let go of attachment and aversion and is not going to be disappointed and will have no reason or desire to complain. For the rest of us, definitely me, there is compassion. Because on some days we will indulge. Right? We're going to have that French fry and we're going to utter that empty complaint. But we always have the next moment to jump right back into our practice and to consider that, you know, French fry or that empty complaint as learning and as part of our practice. So those are some thoughts on how everything is changing. And it's easy to complain. And remember to pace yourself in your practice and in this world. You to take good care of yourself and your loved ones and protect the unprotected. You've been listening to the Death Dhamma Podcast with your host, Margaret Maloney. Thank you so much for being here. Come find me on margaretmaloni.com M A R G A R E T M E L o n I.com and until we meet again, may you be well, may you be happy, may you be at ease, and may you be free from suffering. Bye for now.