mindfulness teachings: on forgiveness
“Forgiveness is our own spiritual work, for our own evolution.”
writing by Jess Peter Koffman, in his book Insight — a meditator shines light on higher planes of consciousness, happiness and human potential. I found myself repeatedly returning to this chapter while reading a borrowed copy of this book from Sammy, a dear sister/friend/mentor here in Nelson (my new home!). Jess koffman is writing from a thai Buddhist lineage, and the teachings in this book are shared with a clarity that resonates with my spirit.
from Chapter 6, A Conscious Evolution in Insight:
"As individuals we believe we need to acquire more. As a country and even as a planet, we are always looking to gain, to expand or to improve. We continue to want. The reason we continue this is because it’s a mentality. The reason we haven’t stopped working in this way, which continues to cause pain for many species and humans, is simply because we are not evolving consciously. We’re keeping the same mental patterns we’ve had since our tribal days of hunting for food. We have the same mental attitudes, like the need to acquire more. We used to have legitimate primal fears of being killed by wild animals or natural forces. We have cleverly eliminated many of these threats from our habitats, but we haven’t evolved from having fears. Our fears have shifted to psychological issues. Instead of fearing a predator, we are afraid of being attacked verbally. Instead of fearing starvation, we fear the food won’t taste as good as it did at another restaurant. Instead of fearing the wind will blow our shelter away and our fire out, we fear our financial position will decline or our credit card number and passwords will be stolen.
We have these mental patterns that continue. We have desires to acquire more and fears that we’re going to be threatened by people and circumstances. Until now, we haven’t evolved past these things.
What some of us are starting to do is realize that we must evolve consciously. This means learning to observe ourself and to develop our own mind. We are putting our own mind on a path where we can achieve peace and fulfilment, independent of what the world says about us. We can be at peace, independent of goals that we’ve set in the outside world, like a degree, a promotion, or a certain job. We can be independent of how we see ourself, how people see us, who likes us, who does not or whatever else may be happening outside of ourself. We’re moving towards evolving mentally and emotionally, meaning we are learning to be fulfilled, complete and peaceful even when suffering is all around us.
It starts with learning to awaken out of our old mental patterns. Many of these patterns aren’t as personal as we may think. They are cultural and sociological patterns of people as a whole. We start to awaken out of our social culture. We are learning to become aware of the way in which these patterns work and we are waking up out of these patterns.
To wake up out of old mental patterns, we need to recognize that we are in them, while we are in them. We realize that when we are in negative mental patterns, we are causing our own pain. Our pain is not caused from the people and circumstances we are thinking about. Our pain is coming from the negative thinking we are engaged in with regards to our world.
We have to start accepting responsibility for our own pain. We must realize it’s our own mental patterns that are causing us to suffer. Sure there are negative circumstances. This person doesn’t act like we want him to, and we wish he would change. Our work situation isn’t ideal, and we wish it would improve. Hasn’t it always been like this, in some way or another? Ever since childhood, there were always situations and people that weren’t exactly the way we wanted them to be. It is impossible for the world to be in a state that is soothing and perfect for us all the time. The world is the way it is and can’t conform to our every desire. That is the present reality. To gain peace, we should work on our own mental patterns and the way we respond and react to the world.
It’s so simple and obvious to see where the problem actually is: we are our own problem. We have to realize this first. Once we do, then we can start to look at our own mental patterns. We’ll see that when a person in our life is acting in a way that we don’t like, we want to argue and fight. All of this conflict and negativity is going on in our own mentality, and then sometimes we may want to react in a harmful way. Now that we are growing consciously, instead of being a slave to an impulsive negative reaction, we have a look. We notice the reaction that goes on inside of us as a result of the external event. This reaction is the problem. The reaction is the pain. The pain is not what the others say or do. The pain is here inside ourself, in what we think and feel as a reaction to what they say or do. Once the pain is here, we can see it as the result of our mental patterns, and have an opportunity to wake up from them, and become more kind, compassionate and wise.
Hilma Af Klint, Swan No 1
Forgiveness
With so much ongoing war and human conflict in our world, it is obvious that we humans are carrying a lot of pain. If we look at history, we see the same tribal conflicts continue today, only with updated weapons. If we want peace, we must wake up out of our old patterns and do something new. We must learn to forgive. Forgiveness has been widely misunderstood. Once we really understand forgiveness, it becomes apparent why it’s an essential aspect of our conscious evolution.
When we forgive, we don’t sponsor the person’s hurtful actions.
In that sentence lies all the answers we need regarding forgiveness. We can see that we are not supporting or condoning what someone did. Forgiveness is not about saying that whatever we are disliking or holding a grudge against is okay. That’s not what we’re doing. Forgiveness isn’t about declaring someone’s actions are no longer bad actions, or that we were wrong and they were right. Forgiveness is certainly not about letting them feel that what they did was acceptable if it wasn’t.
What we’re doing is sensing what is holding the grudge, what is holding the non-forgiveness, or even holding to a strong opinion. The strong opinion is at the root of non-forgiveness. Whether we believe that opinion to be right or not, is irrelevant. It is still holding to an opinion, such as, “That shouldn’t have happened the way it did,” or “They shouldn’t have done this or that,” or “It was terrible,” or “I am a victim,” or whatever other opinion it might be. When we hold to a strong opinion like this, we hold resentment and anger in our heart. We are totally focused on and concerning ourself with a story, and saying what they did was wrong. Instead of being caught up with the specifics of a story, let’s have a look at how resentment really feels. How does anger feel? How does defining oneself by other people’s actions feel? How does holding a strong conviction feel? Regardless of whether the story we tell ourself is true or not, how does it truly feel in our heart when we say, “I am right and they are wrong.”
In comparison, how does it feel in the heart and in our energy field when there is no anger, when there is no resentment, when there is no grudge? Never mind the stories. How does it feel to be free of any angst in the heart?
The only consequence that the thoughts and the pains can imagine is that the perpetrators, or the ones who have wronged us, don’t deserve our forgiveness. When we look deeper, what don’t they deserve? They don’t deserve us to feel light and free? We mistakenly believe that if we hold a grudge against people that they can’t be happy. In truth, we are the ones that can’t be happy. We are the ones carrying the weight of it in our chest.
We feel that if we let go or if we forgive, that we are foolish. We mistakenly believe that we are allowing someone to be free of punishment or to be treated undeservedly well. We feel we would lose what we have over them. We may feel that forgiveness would be giving others power or permission to treat people badly, yet without forgiveness, we are the one treating ourself badly. We are punishing our own heart: confining it, suppressing it, denying it, closing it.
It is impossible to hold emotional pain anywhere outside of our own heart. Isn’t that true? Where else would we be holding it? When we hold pain in our heart, we are giving ourselves pain. We fear that if I forgive, that means I don’t care about what they did, that I could make the same mistake again, or that I am vulnerable. If we are especially self-righteous, we may think that if we forgive them, they won’t learn their lesson. We believe that if we remove the imagined shackles we’ve put on them, that they will run loose and continue to be harmful. We believe that they won’t learn. We believe deep down that, “I’m vulnerable. If i forgive, I will get hurt again.”
When we see clearly, such ideas seem preposterous. I hope we are starting to sense this now. As soon as we forgive, our heart is released from a heavy burden. It is light and open and isn’t holding anger or resentment. Yet we somehow think that if we hold unnecessary pain, it will help us to not feel pain. Can we see how ridiculous this is?
Once we forgive, we don’t become unwise. In fact, quite the opposite: we are wise. The bravest heart is the vulnerable one, the one that is open and not afraid to feel anything. A heart like that is not radiating with the energy of “hurt me”. It is just the opposite. It’s extremely powerful. When we forgive, the other person doesn’t even have to know. Forgiveness is inner work. It happens in our own heart. We can still choose not to associate with or support those whom we believe have caused harm or those we have had problems with. The external aspects are irrelevant. Are we seeing this now?
Forgiveness is our own spiritual work, for our own evolution. We don’t become weak. It is the opposite. We become quite aware which situations are favourable and which are not. We also become more aware and intuitive about people and situations, and whether or not they are worthy of our involvement. Our heart is open, ready and wise. It understands that sometimes there are positive feelings and sometimes there are negative feelings, but we don’t need to pre-emptively close our heart and not allow it to feel anything, just in case we may feel something negative. Attempting to protect oneself by closing our mind and heart off to any feeling is a painful way of being.
An example of this painful way of being is reminding ourself of the suffering that certain people have caused us. If we were in a difficult relationship and it ended very painfully, some may think the appropriate thing to do is to bring us the negative stories, to keep negative feelings towards our former partner, so that we will remain strong and hold to our decision. Some people may even keep reminding themselves over and over of how much they dislike their former partner.
It is far healthier to be as open and honest with one’s own heart as possible. For example, it is perfectly okay to love someone who has hurt us. It is perfectly okay to love someone who we will never see again. We just have to be brave enough to allow these feelings to pass through. They come and go, just like every feeling does. If we haven’t opened up our heart to our own feelings, then we will misunderstand the transient, true nature of them. We will fear sadness, fear loneliness, fear a broken heart, and fear that if these feeling arise, they will stay.”
illustration by darina muravjeva
