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Forgiveness

Good evening. I'm happy to see you here this evening.

I'm going to begin with the opening lines of the Dhammapada^[1].

All experiences are preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind. Speak or act with a corrupted mind, and suffering follows like the wheels of the cart behind the hooves of the ox. All experiences are preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind. Speak or act with a peaceful mind, and happiness follows like a never-departing shadow.

He abused me, attacked me, defeated me, robbed me. For those carrying on like this, hatred does not end. She abused me, attacked me, defeated me, robbed me. For those not carrying on like this, hatred ends. Hatred never ends through hatred. By non-hate alone does it end. This is an ancient truth. Many do not realize that we here must die. For those who realize this, quarrels end.

Last week, we spoke about leaving behind what has already taken place, refusing to drag it into the present time, letting go of what came before. This week I would like to talk about forgiveness, a specific form of leaving things behind. Not for the sake of the injustice, the harm, the hurtful words, the misunderstood, but to free this heart here from the unskillful, unuseful, debilitating feelings of resentment, anger, rage, confusion, despair. That come from unforgiven acts and inferences from the past whether they are ours or someone else's, because often we don't forgive ourselves either.

It's a home of self-criticism. So what I want to talk about is forgiveness not for the sake of the forgiven but for the sake of the forgiver. Forgiveness for the sake of the forgiver.

Very often we're plagued by thoughts of unresolved differences, offenses, injustices, abuse. There are lots of things that have happened in our past that leave a deep mark on us that we look at and say, "Oh, I will never forgive that. I will never forgive that. That is an unforgivable act. The hurt was too deep. The betrayal too strong." And we hold it to ourselves, slowly gnawing away at our hearts, or we close our hearts off. Another version of the same thing: in order to protect myself from this unforgivable act, I'm going to not feel anything, not engage in relationship, always be wary of relationship.

We become drained or energized by anger, and frustrated by our attempt to get rid of the pain. Now we keep telling ourselves the story over and over again. "Oh yeah, that happened. That happened." We replay the story about the pain and drag it willfully into the present moment. "That was so horrible. Oh, I can feel it now." But what I feel now is not what I felt then. What I feel now is my reaction to then, whatever then was. What I'm feeling now is a reaction. It's not what I was feeling then, however good my memory might be.

We're full of "if onlys." If only I had done that. If only I'd had spoken up for myself. If only that person was more civilized. If only there were not injustice in the courts. If only... massaging our memories from the past with the false notion that we can somehow make them better. That's sort of like lucid dreaming. You find out you're dreaming. You don't like what's going on. You say, "Well, I'm going to just alter these things." In a dream, you can do that. In real life, you cannot.

I believe it was Jack Kornfield^[2] who said, "Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past." The past is past. And yet we carry these differences of opinion and these heartbroken memories that keep us from other people, other places, large swaths of people, people in our family, people we actually care about.

But somehow we have a need to blame somebody for this pain. "It's your fault," or "it's my fault." It has to be someone's fault, this pain. But we have to remember that it's actually here. This pain, it's not there. It's here.

We all have regrets. Things we wish we hadn't done. I do. How do we relate to those regrets? Sorrow. It's something hurtful that was said to us, that was done to us, that we said to someone else. And it seems like the barrier between us is totally immovable. I cannot tell you how many people come to practice discussions and say, "I can't get through to my sister. My children won't speak to me. I can't talk to this person. I will never forgive that person." It's extremely prevalent in the pain that we carry around with ourselves. These hurtful things that happened in our past that we're dragging along behind us like a sack on our back. And it's heavy.

Whether in the case of our own regrets—we intended the pain that we caused or it was unintentional—we can still blame ourselves as we blame other people, never quite allowing for the fact that they didn't know what they were doing, that it was unintentional on their part.

We become trapped by our own story, by our own view. We think that whatever this falling out was about, it was as we see it, not as someone else might see it. "Yeah, it was just like this. I remember it." And yet the other person, the other party, could well remember it in quite a different way.

There is a book of verses, the Aṭṭhakavagga^[3] suttas. Gil Fronsdal did a translation of them. His translation is called Buddha Before Buddhism, and from that I took this phrase: "I felt discontent at seeing only conflict to the end. Then I saw an arrow here, hard to see, embedded in the heart. Pierced by this arrow, people dash about in all directions. When the arrow is pulled out, they don't run and they don't sink."

As it turns out, the secret of ending the pain is not repairing the past. It's pulling out the arrow. And it's here that that happens, not in the past. It's now that that happens.

So the question is, who's responsible for the arrow? Did I shoot the arrow? No, I didn't shoot the arrow. "It's your arrow." "Oh, no. I don't have that arrow. The arrow is in your heart." Who's responsible for removing the arrow? Who's responsible for ending the pain that you feel, that I feel?

It becomes necessary to look very closely at what's happening now, not what happened then. If I think about what happened in that horrible moment, the question I ask is, so how do I feel about that? Am I feeling unseen? Am I feeling disregarded? Am I feeling put upon? How am I feeling? And what do I want?

Give up wanting it to be different. It already happened. "Well, I want to see my children. I want to see my grandchildren. They won't let me see my grandchildren." Okay. So, what you want is to see your grandchildren. What does that have to do with your story? Your story about something that's unforgivable. Their story about what's unforgivable. It's unforgivable because it turns out both parties just want to be loved. Ah, this is what we want.

Focusing not on what has happened, but on what is my intention? What is it that I want? What is it that I'm leaning toward? Now, the whole energy can change if I don't lean so heavily on "this is what happened." And I'm going to justify my anger by telling you all the ways that it was harmful. And I'm going to keep telling that story until I beat it to a pulp. Or I can say, "You know, what I'd like is not to be carrying the burden of that, to not be telling myself that story."

I had a story I carried around with me for years. A great injustice. I was quite angry. My initial response was terrible depression. This was 30 years ago. For many years, I carried this injustice in my heart. And I kept telling myself, "Oh, just let it go. Just let it go. Just let it go." But it turned out that what was necessary was for me to face the pain of it. Not how it could have been different. Not the story about how I could have been different or they could have been different, but the story about what it did to me and how do I feel about that? In this case, what it did was just destroy who I thought I was. And the answer to that is, well, who are you? [Laughter] Oh, it doesn't matter who I was.

Now, when that story comes to mind, I know that there's something I'm not seeing. It's not about that story anymore. It's become a kind of allegory. "Oh, I'm thinking that again. I better pay attention. There's something I'm not paying attention to here." Because I finally realized that carrying around anger about that was only hurting me. Only hurting me.

Now to say forgiving doesn't mean that I condone what happened. No, no, no. It's not condoning the behavior. It's not condoning what happened at all. Forgiveness can only forgive something, something that happened, some person. We can't ignore what happened. We don't pretend it didn't happen. We don't say, "Oh, well, it was nothing." It was something. We're carrying it around for a long time. It must be something. We have to actually face the pain of it before we can forgive. But we have to be really honest about what that pain is.

In the case of, "Well, they won't let me see my grandkids." The pain now is I'm feeling lonely and I really would like to see my grandkids. Knowing that and finding a place with the other party where you can both identify a pain may be a way of getting over the initial hurdle. But you have to be really clear about what the pain is in the first place. It can't be a story about the injustice. Can't be about how wrong they are for not letting you see your grandkids.

Suppressed anger only leads to amorphous resentment. And resentment is really the home of that arrow in the heart. That little digging in: "Oh, it shouldn't be this way. It just shouldn't be this way." We have to let go of the argument about the pain, who caused it, what it was all about, and look at what it is that is hurting us. What is it that's really hurting?

The difference between embarrassment and a life-threatening condition is enormous. And sometimes embarrassment is one of the most difficult things to get over, unless you can say, "It was just embarrassment, man. Do I need to carry that? Do I care that much about what people think about me? How do I want to be in the world?" We make the proverbial mountain out of a molehill with some of the things that we carry around with us. Not that the molehill is not disturbing to the garden and quite irritating, difficult to get rid of, but it's not a mountain. It's not immovable. It's not unchangeable.

Forgiveness is actually a positive quality. It's not about the negativity stuff at all. It's not about what's wrong and fixing what's wrong. It's really a positive movement. There's a wonderful book, which is probably out of print now, that I refer to every once in a while called The Power of Kindness by Piero Ferrucci^[4]. In it, he talks about forgiveness. He says one of the important things to keep in mind is that we can only be kind if the past no longer dominates us.

We can walk around with these past pains, things we can't forgive, and we're diligently doing our practice to be good, and we're doing mettā^[5], and we're softening our heart, and we're doing all the wonderful things, and we're being mindful, but "I'm not going to let go of this." And whatever that is that I'm not going to let go of prevents us from moving forward. It prevents us from being kind. Because, as in the passage I read at the beginning, from a corrupted mind only suffering follows. From a peaceful mind, happiness follows like a never-departing shadow.

What we carry around with us colors everything we see. It colors our experiences. It colors all of our impressions. And getting rid of a negative—"No, I won't go there"—can be such a lightening of the heart. It's unbelievable.

But in the end, forgiveness means never putting anyone out of our heart. Who have you put out of your heart? And in what way have you put them out of your heart? There are people I don't speak to anymore because we're simply not on the same path. But not because I think they're evil. There were times when I thought that. Sometimes I've had to really think hard to find things that I could share humanity with. But the truth is that we all just want to be happy and there is a way.

It may not be through reconciliation. Reconciliation and forgiveness are very, very different. Forgiveness is something we do here. Reconciliation is something we do with others. They're related, but they are not the same. Sometimes what we want, we can't have, but we can still let go of the arrow of resentment and anger and the dissociative processes that go with that.

Nelson Mandela said, and I love this quote: "Not to forgive is like drinking a glass of poison and waiting for the enemy to die." Really, it is not about making it better with someone else. It's about letting go of the anger and resentment in your own heart so that you can be light and loving and kind and forgiving and enjoying your life. It may mean that some of what you want is not ever going to be there. But if you look deeply enough at what you want, you want to be happy. And the idea of whatever it is that you think you're not getting from the other party or can't get from the other party is really a surrogate for that. It may be an important surrogate for that, but it is a surrogate. It is something that we're putting in the place of.

So, how do we do that? [Laughter] That's all well and good to say, "Okay, I'm going to forgive that person. I'm going to forgive that being. I'm going to forgive that system. I'm going to forgive that thing that I've been dragging around with me." How do we do that?

It may take time. Sometimes we catch ourselves before much time has elapsed, and we say, "Oh, I shouldn't have done that." And we immediately apologize and we say, "I'm going to stop." Which is the most important part, by the way: the stopping. I'm going to stop doing that. I'm going to stop telling myself that story. I'm going to stop building up the hate in my heart by repeating that story. And when I hear myself begin that story, I'm going to say, "What's going on? What's happening here? Why is this story coming up now? What's happening now? Am I lonely? Am I sad?"

Sometimes we can repair something by making an apology. Sometimes we can't.

Empathic listening. Listening to the other person and really hearing what it is they're saying as opposed to hearing what hurts. What is that person really saying? What it is they're looking for. Can I hear that? Or if I were my own friend, what would I say to me? If I were my best friend—which would be nice if we were our best friend, but sometimes it's stretched—what would I say to me when I hear this story? What would I say? Would I be able to step outside the story enough to say, "You know, there's another way of looking at that?" Or would I be so entangled in the story that I would say, "Oh, yeah, that's really awful. Oh, you're right. That's unforgivable."

The thing about forgiveness is it's something that needs to be present. It feeds on what's going on now. It has to be about the feeling happening now. It's important not to let an emotion from the past bleed into this moment. To be really clear about what's happening now with you, to look outside the story and see: "Is my jaw clenched? Are my shoulders hunched? Am I avoiding something? What happens if I open up my chest? Do I feel vulnerable?" Oh, it's about vulnerability. Oh, now I have something I can deal with in the present moment.

And when we do that, we can see that with a certain amount of compassion. It's like, "Oh man, that really sucks. Huh. I didn't know I felt that way. I wonder what I think about that now." When we bring it into the present moment, more can happen. It's not frozen in the story of the past. There's more opportunity for that to open up.

Guided Forgiveness Practice

I want to share with you a simple forgiveness practice. It's very similar to a mettā practice or an equanimity practice and it's taken from Stephen Levine^[6]. So it goes like this. If you just sort of follow behind me:

For anyone I have caused pain, intentionally or unintentionally, through my thoughts, my speech, or my actions, I ask their forgiveness. Allow yourself to be forgiven. Allow yourself to be forgiven. Make room for yourself in your heart.

I forgive myself for all the pain I've caused, for even the things I didn't mean to. I forgive myself for any words or actions that may have caused pain for other people, intentionally or unintentionally. I forgive me, and I ask your forgiveness.

If I've caused harm for you, or for myself, intentionally or unintentionally, may I be forgiven. If you have caused me harm, intentionally or unintentionally, I forgive you.

You can repeat these things over and over to yourself until you hear them. Until you hear them.

If I have harmed you intentionally or unintentionally, may I be forgiven. If you have caused me harm, intentionally or unintentionally, I forgive you.

And as you say these words, consider what happens in your heart. It will not change the past, but it may change what's happening now.

Hope and Forgiveness

Further on in the verse I was reading you from the Aṭṭhakavagga, it says: "What was before, let it wither away. What will be later, do nothing with it. Not grasping what's in between, you'll live at peace. What was before, let it wither away. What will be later, do nothing with it. After not grasping what's in between, you'll live at peace."

I'm going to read you a poem by Jane Hirshfield^[7] called My Hope.

My Hope Today my hope is vertical. Tomorrow it will be horizontal. The next day cloudy. My hope is like a Greek myth exchanging skin for bark, bark for scales, scales for the hollow bones of a bird. In these ways, my hope attempts to escape its fate. In myth, hope surely knows escape is useless. Still, hope will try. I, who will someday leave behind this three-dimensional puzzle, pity my hope. Poor thing, I say to my hope, even I cannot spare you. Even I cannot make you mortal. Winged, rooted, finned, roofed or roofless, of all my shapes, only you, hope, know nothing of irony. Only you cannot be cynical or cloak yourself in the objectivity of grammar. Only you cannot suffer suffering. You exempt, you deny, you protest, with speech and with silence. You forgive, helpless not to, in speech and in silence. I, citizen of perspective, born into the tribe of time, will vanish into its blurring distance. But you, most intransigent, most stubborn of all my parts, will be forced to continue. How tenderly with two open hands you reach again today for hunger's apple.

Hope exists not in the past or the future, but in this moment. It's a quality of mind that is free from the dregs of the history of the past. It's a lifting of the heart. It's not grasping. It's simply hopeful. Hope does not have a goal. It's a bubbling up. It is not covetousness. Hope is a quality that stands right in the middle, leading to how I see forgiveness.

In the act of forgiving, in the fact of forgiveness, there is a bubbling up of hope. The dreariness and the weight of unforgiveness is replaced by this bubbling up.

I'm going to read the poem one more time.

My Hope Today my hope is vertical. Tomorrow it will be horizontal. The next day cloudy. My hope is like a Greek myth exchanging skin for bark, bark for scales, scales for the hollow bones of a bird. In these ways, my hope attempts to escape its fate. In myth, hope surely knows escape is useless. Still, hope will try. I, who will someday leave behind this three-dimensional puzzle, pity my hope. Poor thing, I say to my hope, even I cannot spare you. Even I cannot make you mortal. Winged, rooted, finned, roofed or roofless, of all my shapes, only you, hope, know nothing of irony. Only you cannot be cynical or cloak yourself in the objectivity of grammar. Only you cannot suffer suffering. You exempt, you deny, you protest, with speech and with silence. You forgive, helpless not to, in speech and in silence. I, citizen of perspective, born into the tribe of time, will vanish into its blurring distance. But you, most intransigent, most stubborn of all my parts, will be forced to continue. How tenderly with two open hands you reach again today for hunger's apple.

I wish you joy in forgiveness, truly. And if I have harmed you in any way, offended you in any way, I ask your forgiveness. Thank you.

Q&A

Maria Straatmann: So my friends, we have a question or a statement.

Questioner 1: That's right. Well, I have a friend with the same problem. I mean, just a female friend, and she's got problems. Her daughter won't call her. She tends to not let the grandchildren call her. It just goes on and on and on and I listen, you know. But I think I should—this is being recorded so I could send it to her. That would be most helpful.

Maria Straatmann: Yeah.

Questioner 1: But whatever or whoever offended me in the past, I don't remember so much. Maybe it's I have a bit of dementia. That's why I don't remember.

Maria Straatmann: Isn't that wonderful? Every day is new. [Laughter]

Questioner 1: But no, I know that I lost a few boyfriends and, you know, at the time I got really upset, but now I've just let it go. Thank God for that, or thank some Buddha. Thank the Buddha for that. So, yeah, it's exactly what you were saying.

Maria Straatmann: Yeah. Thank you.

Questioner 2: So if someone in the past has done something that really hurt you emotionally, and you feel like if they would apologize to you or make amends, it would help everybody, both parties... how would you go about helping them to apologize, trying to get them to apologize? Or is that something that you should never do?

Maria Straatmann: Well, from your point of view, an apology would be useful. From the other person's point of view, it may not be that way.

Questioner 2: So, should you not at all try to help them to see that they could apologize? I mean, should you put some effort, or no?

Maria Straatmann: There are two steps here. One is forgiveness and one is reconciliation, and they are different. In the spirit of reconciliation, there needs to be an accommodation between two people. Anytime you enter a conversation where I'm going to teach you how you're wrong, you will lose, right? Because my decision that you are wrong leaves them no space.

So often people will say to me, "Well, I'm in a discussion with my husband and we have a disagreement about this, and do I just let him have his way?" Well, no, you don't just let him have his way. But you do have to decide, why do I need to be right about this? Is it because I just need to be right? And is that more important than being kind to my husband? This is a real conversation that you can have with yourself.

I have people in my past who have hurt me that I'd love to have them apologize to me, but the apology isn't important to me. If the relationship is important to me, I can decide, can I forgive this person? Have I given up resentment about this involvement with what happened before? Then there's nothing here.

I'll give you an example. My stepmother died a few years ago, and in the last years of her life, we had a major disagreement about my brother. And we just didn't speak to each other. It was just unpleasant, my stepmother and I. As it became clear that she was nearing death, I said, "I've got to go see her. I've got to sort this out. We need to become reconciled." I went to see her and as I sat around and talked to her—she was somewhat demented but she knew who I was—we had a regular conversation.

After a couple of days, my husband said, "Well, you never brought up the issue with your mother." And I said, "Well, no, why would I? It's not on her mind. It's only on mine." And so I realized that this reconciliation did not need to happen. There was no pressure for it to happen. But I needed to let go of the hurt I had that this had arisen. I had to let go of something. There was no need for her to apologize for what had happened or to work out a reconciliation with me. No need whatsoever.

Now, she said to me the day I left, she said, "You know, I never think of you, but it's really been wonderful having you here." And I thought, "That's perfect. That's perfect." I have no sadness over the relationship with my stepmother, with whom most of the time I knew her, we had a very positive relationship. No sadness. But I could have held on to all the grief around that situation, details of which are unimportant, not necessary. Now she's gone, so you know, I don't have an ongoing relationship with her.

That was an extreme example, but there are lots of other people where that's not the case. And for me to hold out the requirement for a firm relationship that they apologize is not forgiving.

Questioner 2: What if it's not a requirement? What if it's a sharing from your heart, a meaningful emotion? Does it have to be sort of like a requirement?

Maria Straatmann: Well, who says that it's better or desirable? Why? Why does the reconciliation require an apology?

Questioner 2: It might not. But could it?

Maria Straatmann: No. Never. It might facilitate a reconciliation, but it can't be seen as, "Unless I can get you to do this, we're never going to be friends." Because that's a condition that is unforgiving. Do you see the relationship here?

I have a poem I didn't read that's an example. And the reason I didn't read it is it's like that. So the title of the poem is Forgiveness.

It was the winter of manatees. Captain Rhonda and her chartered pontoon boat floating down the Crystal River. It was the winter you hurt me. And that day of dumb hearts when you brought me truffles and perfume like a performance at the tiki bar in the cold February Florida wind. Rihanna played over the staticky speakers hidden behind a fake coconut. Something something about giving up or saying something at the restaurant. Later, the couple we laughed at in their late 50s for maybe being swingers. All the uniformed tables, identical roses, and cheap plastic faces, even my deep cleavage and the layer cake were trying too hard. Still, we committed to the event of us and made a joke about not hurting each other again. We weren't married yet. Everyone was free to leave. And the next afternoon, you went to work and I took a boat down the river to see the manatees. It was back when I got lonely often. I called and asked if I could bring my dog on the boat. They said no. So tranquil and patient, the manatees moving. So many mysteries even in the shallow water. Captain Rhonda pointed out their hideouts, their shadowy places. People took pictures and pointed. You could see the scars on the older animals from propeller blades. And still they rolled on together in the silent waters. Back on shore, you found me by the too-cold pool, watching a group of loud teenagers drink in the hot tub. One shirtless boy kept flexing and flexing while the girls, engrossed in convention, never noticed. And aren't we all alone in the end? You put your head on my chest for a moment. Then all I could hear was our breathing. We were both human and animal-hearted, bound to the blades, bound to outrun them.

Those blades affecting the manatees. Bound to outrun them. The truffles and the hearts she made fun of, that was the apology. Not important.

Questioner 2: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's nice.

Maria Straatmann: But forgiveness lies elsewhere. Forgiveness is a deeper place. I know when my husband is doing something that I just don't want him to do anymore, it is absolutely useless to say to him, "I don't want you to do that anymore." But if I say to him, "I need you to know why that hurts me," I guarantee you it'll never happen again. Instead of making it about him, I acknowledged it was about me. I didn't need an apology.

Questioner 2: Okay.

Maria Straatmann: Thank you all for your time. If you want to delve into forgiveness again, there was a daylong I did with Daniel Bowling long ago in 2009 and the talks that we gave are on Audio Dharma. It was a daylong on forgiveness. Thank you.