The more civilized and mentally oriented you are,
the more regrets you have.
Much of an ordinary man’s mental life consists of regrets; 
conversely,
a sure sign of a person’s lack of civility is their
insufficient display of regrets.

To suffer regrets a creature must have thoughts,
and from a physical survival perspective, 
holding memories of past regrettable actions would be
for the purpose of using them in future decision making,
i.e. so as to not repeat them.
But check with your own life: 
How often do the regrettable memories constantly 
swirling in your mind
play a part in your instant decision making?
The truth is, you do not know,
but this much is obvious to an interested eye:
consciously, you cannot see your regrets serving 
any purpose other than to fill space in your mind.

Regrets, (and its sister, shame), are the bedrock of
a civilized and safe society, 
and with ordinary people they are 
individual necessities to keep their behavior within 
certain non threatening bounds.
But for a man seeking to grasp the total  reality of
things,
regrets are an agent of blindness and 
useless distraction.

To regret hitting your thumb with a hammer is one thing,
but beyond such physically consequential examples 
what other basis for regret is there?
But men of ordinary consciousness routinely feel regrets about 
apparently nothing more than simply being alive.
The non tangible, mentally-contrived, 
secondary reality of man is propped up by regrets;
Quasimodo survives by being ashamed of his looks,
and Joan of Arc by regretting her unfair treatment.
Illusions must be touchy to survive. 

The warrior’s dictum: “Don’t complain --  don’t explain”
was appropriated twenty three hundred years ago from a man who saw-to-the-bottom-of-things.
He realized the vacuous folly of regret,
the insanity of complaining,
and the impossibility of explaining.

Complaining & explaining are two partners in a dance
with regrets being the music.
Only thoughts have regrets, and
complain and explain,
and regrets, complaints and explanations
exist only in your thoughts.
A man’s instincts never feel any regrets,
nor do they ever complain, or even attempt to
explain their actions.
Only a creature with thoughts offers explanations
for the way it lives, 
or complains about the conditions in which it does.
And afterwards, only an animal whose brain deals
partially in words will feel or express regret for
what it has done, said or thought.

   The theme song: 
   “I Am Man  --   Hear Me Whine!”

That part of a man’s instinctively driven existence,
if it be doing no harm to another,
does nothing for him to ever regret;
if a man feels regret
it is always about something intangible,
immaterial,
something that “occurred” in the mental realm of
make-believe-reality.
One man’s word offended another man’s word;
one man’s verbal picture triggered an 
unsavory verbal picture in another man.
All of this thus far is pre-schooler;
here comes the First Grade lesson.

In re: “regrets”:
You should be both sensitive --  and,
hard as an engine block.
Sensitive to the feelings of others –
indifferent to your own.

Only by complaining about yourself to yourself,
and only by trying to explain yourself to yourself
can you experience regret.
Do not attempt to explain yourself to other people,
and do not complain to other people about
other people,
and you will play no part in their regretting.
Do the same with yourself and you will cease to suffer from regrets.

The thoughts naturally produced in everyone’s brain
tells them that they are special people.
Thoughts tell a man that he is Lancelot,
and a woman that she is Guinevere,
or Al Ghazzali, and Teresa of Avila.
To think that you are special is to be asleep,
and to believe that your existence needs explaining,
and that your regrets thereabout are justified
is to be insane --  normal --  but nuts.

Be sensitive to the thought-supported, 
non physically based feelings of others,
but open your eyes to the reality of what these are
and refuse to run the same game on yourself.
All you have to do is shut up;
don’t say anything to others,
let them do all of the talking -- 
all of the complaining & explaining –
just nod your head knowingly & keep quiet
and you will never have anything ever again to regret.

Now! –
take the same damn tack with 
your same damn self
and you’ll quickly see all the skanky junk
tossed outta your attic.

You do not regret anything you have ever done;
the feeling called, regret that you have 
is caused by the thoughts about whatever it was
that you are now entertaining in your brain’s consciousness.
It is never the thing itself that you suffer over –
it is the thinking about it.

You do not have any actual complaints with life,
only about the thoughts that appear in your mind about life.

You do not feel any real need to explain 
the way you live,
only your thoughts do regarding what they have
said about the way you and everyone else lives.

An enlightened mind is like an engine block --
--  not a running motor --  just an engine block….
….just  --    SITTING THERE  --
hard as nails and
going no where................ with no regrets.
 
 

                                             JAN