BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Buddhism Go 21 Days Without Whining

Hello, I'm new around here and your original post caught my eye. I'm going to try this challenge and go 21 days without whining, starting now.

Pleased to meet you all!

Alexandra i am taking baby steps. So trying to have all of those in my brain at once is a lot.

Just trying to be mindful of complaining.

Hi Jan! Good luck!

Also, for me, Day Two.

"Mindful" is the operative word, Jilly. That one skill wraps the Four the Eight and the Five into one single virtue. Mindfulness.

Good on you!

Mindfulness in everyday living is something to be practised from moment to moment. The Four Noble Truths need careful consideration, because of course, our experience of suffering, or unsatisfactoriness, may not be the experience of the person next to us. And even though similar situations may arise, day to day, hour by hour, moment, by moment, our evaluation or View (understanding) of them, also alters fractionally, according to circumstance.
"Whining" has its place. Sometimes it can be therapeutic and beneficial. providing it is done Mindfully (We've been over this, I'm elaborating to assist Jan....)
The Four Noble Truths indicate that Life is Unsatisfactory; They are thus, because we grasp at, and cling to an intended or desired ideal which cannot be attained due to impermanence; That there is a way out of this cyclical desire, grasping and unsatisfactoriness; that this 'way out' is known as the Eightfold Path. Right - View, Intention, Speech, Action, Livelihood, Effort, Awareness, Meditation (Concentration). The Five precepts are signposts or guidelines furhter designed to guide us in our daily intentions:
To not:
Kill; Steal; be inappropriate in our sexual behaviour; speak dishonestly; imbibe or ingest intoxicating substances.

The Four, the Eight and the Five, can thus be practised all in conjunction with one another by Simplifying, and being Mindful.

We can do nothing to change what others may think, say or do: that is for them to wilfully engage in. We can only look to ourselves and to address our own Thoughts, Words and Deeds, and channel them accordingly. Maybe that will be an influence upon others. if that is so, all well and good. We can guide and instruct, and demonstrate that which we practice. but the change of Mind and Heart in others, must come from them.
Hope this helps, Jan.
Any questions about anything, feel free to ask us!

The idea of "mindfulness" reminds me of of the threads where we set our priorities, then set our goals afterwards.

Mindfulness is the first step in not whining, because we can't make changes to something that we are not aware of doing.

So, I'm not yet to the no whining stage , but I am trying to be more aware of when and why I am doing it - and what I can do instead for next time.

I hope that by making these changes, one day I'll GET to the no whining stage!

I was on day 2 but I just whined at the grocery man. Tut! Tut! Back to Day 1. It sounds so easy to do this but it's not.

Today is quite warm, and I wanted to mention to DH that it's hotter than usual upstairs. So i was able to for once say, "it's hotter than usual upstairs," to him, instead of "MAN, it's hot up there!"...which is my usual knee-jerk reaction.

A big difference. It may seem like a small thing, but with the first scenario i don't have to move my bracelet. :-)

Day 3.

I don't see any difference.....

They're both acknowledgments that it's hot upstairs, except that one is a comment, and the other is an exclamation.
How is one or the other, not Right Speech?

That may just be the difference between how Americans and Britains talk - because I got the difference right away.

And I know several times here on the web we've had some confusion over whether something was said sarcastically or "mean" - just because people in Europe and people in America tend to phrase things differently.

It's a lot easier to figure out when we're talking face to face - but reading over the net gets tricky!