Resentments, while they may be triggered by a present moment situation, are our consciousness reliving unresolved emotional pain. Our mind spins, conjuring stories of how we were wronged and how we can assuage those ills. But the flies we are swatting just out of reach were hatched from corpses of a forgotten past. All we have is the mini war we’ve reignited in our gut. 
In this way, resentments are like weights we carry around. Aside from whatever ill feeling we have, our resentments instigate toxic philosophies embedded in our history. We relive these feelings each time we retell these stories.
The act of recollection is a powerful tool of the mind. Like any tool it is neutral until we apply our intention. Recollection is the term for meditation in some traditions. We recollect our natural state of being free of struggle. Or more prosaically, we might simply remember we are sitting here breathing. Each time we remember, we return to our truth. The more we build feelings associated with meditation the easier it is to return. In a sense, we are not trying to create an exalted state with our practice but simply develop the ability to recognize and return to what is actually here in the present. In this way, meditation employs this very natural process of our brain to build the strength to remain present. In time, the strength to recognize, return and remain present leads to our liberation from mental afflictions. But, the same process of recollection can be used to further embed our afflictions, keeping us incarcerated in angry prisons when our intention is defensive.
The term resentment comes from the Old-French ressentir, which refers to re-sentience (thanks to Sarah C. Whitehead). Sentience is a state of being that feels experience. Sentient beings are beings that have emotional as well as sensory and cognitive experience. In our meditation practice, we endeavor to become cognizant of our somatic, emotive and cognitive experience. The deeper our experience, the more it touches these deeper stratas. When we touch these deeper stratas with loving kindness, we are able to heal deeply. Conversely, when we were hurt in a way that wounded us profoundly, the pain becomes embedded in our body as well as our sentient – emotional experience. Painful experiences happening in the present are likely to be conjoined with our embedded memory. We may therefore react disproportionately to present painful situations. A small affront can grow in our minds into a very painful experience. The problem when we become triggered is that it is likely informed by wounds from our past. With resentment we are not in the present. RE- sentience is re – feeling or re – experiencing a triggering situation in the present and fusing it with old wounds. It’s sometimes said resentments are the mind resending the past to torture us in the present. That’s the ground of resentment. Likewise, as these imagined insults remain unresolved, the current resentment story gets iterated and reiterated again and again.
Because our emotions have roots well in our past, when we feel disrespected, disappointed or otherwise hurt by something in the present, we may not be able to entirely resolve our feelings. We might have a clever retort, but the feeling still lingers unseen. The cognitive mind serves as a defensive tool. It was, after all, the evolutionary process developed to help evade danger and provide sustenance. Defensive thinking is deeply programmed within us. Have you ever gone to bed with thoughts of some hurtful moment swirling in your mind as you go over and over again what you could have sad or what you should have done? This is the mind trying to control an uncontrollable hurtful scenario. Its re – iterating the situation again and again in a vain attempt to resolve something that has already happened. This is why resentments are often depicted as a ball and chain we drag with us. Each time we have a new resentment, it becomes added to our list and the weight becomes heavier. The cruel trick of the mind is that we believe each time that the resentment, and our outsized reaction, is self-existing. We fall for the trick again and again not realizing that these seemingly independent affronts to our dignity are in reality meaningless flies stepping on an open wound. When these resentments build to a point that we walk around with exposed wounds we end up reacting to every touch. It’s understandable that resentments lead us to shutting down.
Some people drink or drug to create a sense of freedom from the weight of their resentments. Some desperate dial ex-lovers, or pick up and move to another place. But every escapist scenario leads to the same consequence – we are hiding from ourselves behind this wall of bitchiness. The only way out is to turn inward. When something hurts it is usual to want to find a reason, or something to blame. But blame, as justified as it may be, points in the wrong direction from recovery. If we want to change a painful circumstance, the only thing we can really change is ourselves. And while we may not be to blame for however we were wronged, we can learn from the pain by seeing what it is we could do better that next time. The only way out is to go inward and try and heal ourselves.All we can change is ourselves.
That is recovery. Remembering to recognize resentment and return to our higher nature. Sentience is the embodiment of our consciousness in the present experience. Resentment reminds us to embody our pain. And in that way, we relive and attract that pain. Liberation, on the other hand, is based on remembering our enlightenment, our true nature. The term Buddha refers to awakened. So, our Buddha nature is when we’ve developed ourselves to become aware of our feelings as well as our history so that we can take responsibility for our actions in the future. Returning to embody wakefulness is how we become awake. Recognizing how we are imprisoning ourselves by resentments or our maladaptive reactions to resentment is how we return to our wakeful being. Our wakeful being is free of all stains and bruises, even as our everyday being is full of them. So, our work is to recognize when we are feeding our pain by being our pain and then return to the higher sentience of becoming awake. In meditation we train in recognizing and returning. But we can also train in being.
Imagine you are a Buddha and be that. Be that in your body and heart. Be that despite your suffering. Stop blaming. Stop finding fault. Turn from fueling resentments toward working with our own pain.
And remember to return to wakeful sentience. Being Buddha.
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