The Nature of Forgiveness, Part 2

Guard your heart more than anything else, because the source of your life flows from it. Proverbs 4:23

Laurence Freeman, in good company with many other spiritual leaders past and present, suggests that the secret of life is forgiveness.  Not very exotic, but extremely challenging.

Think over the course of your life and try to discern where the hardness of heart has set in, where you have been and remain unhappy, what has a hold on you that keeps you from inner freedom and peace? Has the refusal or inability to forgive played a role perhaps?

Hang on to resentment for too long and you will find a cancer growing in you, eating a way at peace and one’s ability to love. When we allow negativity to take root in our minds, we find they lock into our hearts, minds and soul like cement which is almost impossible to break free.

In meditation and prayer one learns the work of attention–and that attention is Love. Silence is the work of meditation. Catching those negative thoughts before they cement themselves in us is tackled in meditation and they are sent away as we guard our hearts.

We are careless with our thoughts, we are careless with our hearts. Individually we allow negativity to take root and then we carry this into our communities. We wrap God in our group identity making our group identity an idol. God is not a puppet in our arsenals, Freeman reminds us, and yet we brandish God like a gun. We can see in our own times, as well as the past, that we continually succumb to God wars, making God in our own images.  When those images don’t all look the same, then someone has to have the best God, and so history repeats itself.

Jesus the Christ taught forgiveness, but often we take the banner of religion to justify revenge. It’s downright primitive when we use God to justify the sacrifice of our enemies. Yet, forgiveness is the highest of all human ideals in all the wisdom traditions and Jesus makes it an absolute commandment. But, I again remind the reader, that without prayer, meditation and the true grace of God, forgiveness will be a fleeting ideal.

In fact, it is so difficult for we humans to let go of our hurt, anger, frustration, resentment, and fear–and often these are natural and reasonable responses to the harm we have experienced–that to suggest anything less than divine assistance is naive. In meditation we detach from these fears and our selves and let Love begin the process. It is a difficult, scary undertaking and requires the courage and the desire to let Love win.

Following are some suggested steps to forgiveness, also presented as stages of the heart. I hope you will find them helpful and will think about them before dismissing them after one skim through.

1. Acknowledge feelings of hate and revenge.
2. Become aware that this state of mind is like a poison likely to spread.
3. Ask if you really want to stop it and detoxify or do you want to hang on to it?
4. If you really want to stop it spreading–call the enemy to mind.
5. Ask yourself–what led the person to do what they did? Don’t expect an answer.
6. Meditate–take attention off self and the situation.
7. Reality check–how do you feel?
8. Persevere with practice (now one could blog for weeks just on this step!)
9. You will find, over time, that anger and hurt and pain and desire for revenge has been replaced by compassion.
10. You will eventually find you are free from imprisonment.

I ask you to meditate for 20 minutes, 2 times a day, for two weeks before you dismiss this idea. Forgiveness is not so much about letting the other person off the hook, but about setting yourself free.

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Meditation and the Nature of Forgiveness

“I cannot tell you any spiritual truth that deep within you don’t know already. All I can do is remind you of what you have forgotten.” Eckhart Tolle

I attended a retreat yesterday on the Nature of Forgiveness sponsored by the World Community for Christian Meditation, led by Br. Laurence Freeman. Forgiveness is not only one of the most important graces touching the very core of our spiritual being, but also the most difficult to grasp. In fact, as I am writing this post, a couple of good friends are facing a very difficult situation and suggesting forgiveness to them right now would seem less than compassionate.

Nevertheless, I think the difficulty of forgiveness does not negate the critical importance it has in our evolution and spiritual development. My Franciscan brothers and sisters wrestle with this, the women working with the UN who work daily for justice for women around the world wrestle with this, my brother and sister bishops and priests wrestle with this, even the peace workers and those who teach meditation practices wrestle with this. So, let us, too, wrestle with this. It won’t be easy.

Many spiritual leaders of several faiths conclude that the secret to life–a whole, happy and free life–is forgiveness.

The Hindu leader Vidura said,

Forgiveness subdues (all) in this world; what is there that forgiveness cannot achieve? What can a wicked person do unto him who carries the sabre of forgiveness in his hand? Fire falling on the grassless ground is extinguished of itself. And the unforgiving individual defiles himself with many enormities. Righteousness is the one highest good; and forgiveness is the one supreme peace; knowledge is the one supreme contentment; and benevolence, one sole happiness. (From Mahabharata, Udyoga Parva Section XXXIII, Translated by Sri Kisari Mohan Ganguli.)

As the Qur’an says, “Keep to forgiveness, and enjoin kindness.” (7:199 – 200.)

The Torah reads, “When asked by an offender for forgiveness, one should forgive with a sincere mind and a willing spirit . . . forgiveness is natural to the seed of Israel” (Mishneh Torah, Teshuvah 2:10).

From a Buddhist Loving-Kindness meditation: “Have forgiveness in your heart for anything you think you’ve done wrong . Forgive yourself for all the past omissions and commissions. They are long gone. Understand that you were a different person and this one is forgiving that one that you were. Feel that forgiveness filling you and enveloping you with a sense of warmth and ease.”

And yet, as with me, one of the first thoughts that comes to mind when being asked to learn, meditate on, or to forgive a hurt is one of righteous indignation that we have the “right” to hold on to our hurt. And, always, “What about Hitler?”

I believe I can sit here at the computer and write a very long argument for the case of forgiveness, but this is a lesson that will never make “reasonable” sense intellectually. Our minds will find ways, very successfully, to dilute the need for forgiveness. Forgiveness must be experienced. The truth of wholeness through forgiveness will never be understood without the letting-go that meditation teaches. In meditation, as Br. Laurence put it, we set aside our anxieties and we set our mind (and heart) on God. St. Paul mentioned that, too.

Try meditating, encourages Br. Laurence, and you will not be able to hold a grudge for long. Can you truly give and NOT fall into contemplation?

One of the problems is that trying to forgive doesn’t work, so we feel we can’t do it. Forgiveness is a grace given to us when we allow it in through prayer and meditation. Cain was given a window of opportunity to master his anger before sin walked in–we, too, have that same small space of time where we choose to hang on to our righteous indignation or detach from the reaction.

Not forgiving is a long chain of reactions linked together that continue a cycle of violence. One reacts to a hurt or harm that was caused by another’s anger at being hurt or harmed, etc., etc. Our emotions are directed AT the person we are angry with, not ourselves. We justify–they deserve it.

The ability to forgive comes from the deeper self, not the ego. When we try to forgive from the ego, we can’t do it even if we want to. We project our hurt and anger into our relationships not seeing the present person as they really are. Our minds are unconsciously programmed to react to events in our lives and will block access to forgiveness. What we must remember is that Jesus did not forgive his enemies. He asked his Father to do so.

In meditation we get the attention off ourselves and by laying aside our thoughts, we take the first step to forgiveness. We do not need to worry about how this is going to happen–we can’t possibly forgive THAT (fill in the blank). But, forgiveness is a transformation we observe.  Meditation is attention without an object of thought.

I will write further on this topic as I believe it deserves addressing the questions we all have and cannot be simply reduced to pithy religious speak. However, Christ made forgiveness an absolute commandment, so it should not be something we avoid from fear of having to let go of our righteous indignation.

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