Then discard the rest of the complaint, for some of it will be true but the rest will be poison. There are many who have such troubled hearts that they cannot access the power of their heart to change the world and can only criticize the world for not providing the situations that would make them happy. This experience of despair, helplessness or panic creates a kind of poison in their bloodstream that adds to their problems. (This also occurs in animals as they are about to be slaughtered, and is one reason why in a kosher slaughter the animal is drained of blood.)

The great hearts can remain open to troubled people and draw the poison out of their heart, neutralizing it within their own vast heart. It requires great love for that person, and deep experience with the impersonal emotions that resolve all personal emotions. If your heart has a large capacity for emotion, then the poison it receives has as little effect on it as the ocean receiving a drop of ink.

If you can't keep your heart open in the face of the barrage of complaints, then you can still stay engaged with your heart by turning from receiving to sending. You can send compassion to the heart of those who attack you even when you can't listen to them anymore. This is effective if you first recognize the condition of the troubled heart in yourself.

After finding the same weakened condition in your heart that is in the heart of your accuser, then dig deeper in your heart to find the restorative power. With a sincere wish for the healing of the other person's heart, as you have for your own healing, use your exhalation to carry the whole condition of your heart to the heart of the other person. You feel as both patient and healer simultaneously, which allows you to send the solution of the heart in a way that will reach the problem of the heart. The love stream you send both purifies and heals their heart, filling the bucket while eventually repairing the leak.

What you don't want to do is to turn your heart aside, or restrict your heart's sensitivity. Usually people protect themselves from the complaints of others by adopting pessimism, criticism or indifference. This is another way the poison of the troubled heart damages the hearts of others.

Remember that a person who has a wound in their heart wants to hurt others so that (a) they will know what he feels, and (b) some of his hurt will be dissipated. It doesn't work, of course. He doesn't get sympathy because the people he hurts can no longer give it, and the pain in his heart is not dissipated; it's spread. It takes a strong, complementary emotion to counter the emotion he feels.

Knowing the cause of the resentment directed at you will help you respond as you would like to respond, in a way that can counter instead of spreading the poison. The more your heart develops its power, the greater is your ability to handle dissension, aggravation, betrayal, and abandonment, transforming them into peace.