Forgiveness. Insights for a long life. Is there really something to forgive?

I always invite our international guests during my morning classes to address things they have questions about in relation to Thai culture, Buddhism or life themes they are suffering or worrying about. Independently of each other the last couple of weeks I got quests about ‘forgiveness’. To address this theme, for me, shows people are suffering about it. It is an ongoing disturbing thing in their lives or in the lives of their relationships. A call to share some insights I got working here, joining classes at the Buddhist University in Chiang Mai, and out of my own cultural background so far.

Insight = Enlightenment. Don’t see it directly as a spiritual thing so you don't feel the need to read further. The meaning of enlightenment literally is to ‘drop the weight’ of your shoulders, to feel lighter, freer, to let go and to create space for new things to become that are already waiting for you to transform. To get flow in life again.

The actual meaning of the word ‘forgiveness’ you can see as ‘to give a new chance’. That’s something else than ‘to give a second chance’. When you (only) give a second chance you already created in your mind the wanted or expected outcome or circumstances in the future. So there is no freedom in the direction of the outcome.

Forgiveness has everything to do with something (in your opinion or in the opinion of someone else) ‘wrong-doing’ that happened in the past and is disturbing you now and possibly in the future. You do not want this disturbance any longer and it is not serving you at all.

In Buddhism ‘forgiveness’ is not a real big issue. I will try to give you some understanding about that.

First of all forgiving is a way of ‘giving’ where you do not have to make any physical effort at all. Buddhism learns ‘forgiveness’ is only in your mind. As soon as the thought crosses your mind to forgive, merit will arise already in your mind. Even when you haven’t expended the slightest physical effort, you have managed to earn yourself merit through giving ‘forgiveness’ (Abhãyadãna). Even giving others a smile instead of a scowl/dirty look will bring you merit.

To give is to take generosity, kindness. This means; ‘sacrificing your own ‘possessions’  for the benefit of other people, wholeheartedly, with the intention to honour the virtues of that person, or to assist a person of similar social standing, or to help someone who is worse off than ourselves’.

If you are not wholehearted about giving then it cannot be called ‘to give’ or to forgive. It is therefore broader than the equivalent word ‘Charity’ in Christian culture which is usually restricted to giving to the poor and the sick.

So here the introduction of intention, for the first time in relation to this topic is introduced.

So the second thing still is the question; Is there really something to forgive? A lot of times you will discover you are only disturbing your mind, so yourself, because you do not look deeper. During time you possibly made the story even worse or bigger. You cling on it and cannot leave your vicious circle of thoughts about it. 

In the Buddhist teachings we got the so called Noble Eightfold Path. One of the things in it is ‘Right Intention’.

Forgiveness has something to do with what happened in the past. This present moment, most of the time having more knowledge, understanding, build up wisdom and knowing more about the circumstances of that past moment, you can understand the ‘wrong-doing’ you did or somebody else did to you at that moment. So there is a different, better understanding.

Looking deeply you can ask yourself - or you can look back to the situation - if the underlying intention at that moment really was to hurt somebody else or if somebody else really had the intention to hurt you. 

There is a wonderful guided meditation / Dhama talk that says:

“We can cause harm and other people can harm us. There is a lot in life that hurts us. You can sometimes feel hurt by what other people have done to you. But people are human, they make mistakes, they may be under stress sometimes, they say a sharp word. When your heart is open this can sting it. But most of the time there is no real malice, nothing personal intended in that. It is just that people are fallible and in different situations they act hastily and make mistakes. It is really easy to turn oneself in somebody wronged…, thinking; ‘this always keeps happening to me…’, everybody is against me.

Maybe, in a different way you can think, they try to make you a success. We are not perfect sometimes.

Sometimes we have to open up to forgiveness. Through meditation we can understand what it means. It teaches us that we need not feel graved and feel not retaliate when things turn against us.

Because actually everybody has his best interest and heart but some of the times they don’t show it. Some people are unfortunately so out of touch with compassion, love and wisdom, that they persistently do things that harm others. That’s  tragic but we should not lose heart when we notice that.  We have to know that there are people who are desperately confused and have yet to learn that the way to live is to abandon desires and cultivate kindness to all beings.

And remembering this, that enables us to live unselfish, live for the good of all beings doing that with promotes happiness and harmony.”

So a lot of times we suffer about our need to forgive others or others have to forgive us. If we look deeper and without judging we discover we or other people did not at all have the intention to hurt us. So what is there to forgive? Getting and sharing this insights and thoughts can clear things and feel enlightened, freer, lighter. Just an easy way to say wholeheartedly “Sorry”.  

Buddhism learns that the fruit of forgiving for us is a long(er) life. With your (inner) thoughts you are not toxifying yourself and your environment any longer. To express this in practice Thai people a lot of times connect forgiving others with extending the life of condemned animals (buying cows before being slaughtered and give them a longer life, or buy live fish at the market to release them to earn merit in a stream or river).

First of all try to get a deeper understanding without judging to discover the real underlying intentions at that wrong-doing time. When you discover no real active malice… what are you suffering about? Clear things in your mind and possible in right understanding. Share it with right speech (with right intention and heart connection) and feel (more) free again. The fruit? Long life.

Frans Captijn

Host / Catalyst / Talenteer at Captijn Insight

Captijn Insight: “Catalyst in your process to new sustainable flow in life and work. Whether you are an individual, couple, team or an organization.” 

www.captijninsight.com

captijninsight@gmail.com