Eight Steps to Forgiveness

By Rick Hanson PhD for Wildmind Buddhist Meditation blog, July 17, 2012 

Forgiveness is a tricky topic.

First, it has two distinct meanings:

  • To give up resentment or anger
  • To pardon an offense; to stop seeking punishment or recompense

Here, I am going to focus on the first meaning, which is broad enough to include situations where you have not let someone off the hook morally or legally, but you still want to come to peace about whatever happened. Finding forgiveness can walk hand in hand with pursuing justice.

Second, there is sometimes the fear that if you forgive people, that means you approve of their behavior (like giving them a free pass for wrongdoing). Actually, you can both view an action as morally reprehensible and no longer be angry at the person who did it. You could continue to feel sad at the impacts on you and others – and to take action to make sure it never happens again – but you no longer feel aggrieved, reproachful, or vengeful.

Third, forgiveness can seem lofty, like it only applies to big things, like crimes or adultery. But most forgiving is for the small bruises of daily life, when others let you down, thwart or hassle you, or just rub you the wrong way.

Fourth, paradoxically, in my experience, the person who gains the most from forgiveness is usually the one who does the forgiving. One reason is that we often forgive people who never know we’ve forgiven them; much of the time they never knew we felt wronged in the first place! Further, consider two situations: in one, someone has a grudge against you but then forgives you; in the other situation, you have a grudge against someone but then let it go. Which situation takes more of a weight off of your heart? Generally it’s the second one, since you take your own heart wherever you go.

 

Fundamentally, forgiveness frees you from the tangles of anger and retribution, and from preoccupations with the past or with the running case in your mind about the person you’re mad at. It shifts your sense of self from a passive one in which bad things happen to you, to one in which you are active in changing your own attitudes: you’re a hammer now, no longer a nail. It widens your view to see the truth of the many, many things that make people act as they do, placing whatever happened in context, in a larger whole.

And most profoundly, as you forgive yourself – which can coincide with serious corrections in your own thoughts, words, and deeds – your own deep and natural goodness is increasingly revealed.

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Tags: Anger, Brain, Buddha's, Forgiveness, Hanson, Rick

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Comment by Janna on September 18, 2012 at 9:26am

Consider Forgiveness (transcript below)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmIOYB9Yn20


H.H. the Dalai Lama
Buddhist
Tibet

Different Levels of Forgiveness...

I think there are different levels of forgiveness.
I think a higher level of forgiveness is irrespective of the other's sort of attitude.
The person is still a human being, still deserves our compassion,
our sense of concern, so never sort of develop ill feeling towards that person.
That's the higher level of the practice of forgiveness.

Another level - simply try to not develop anger towards that person.
Simply, act sort of with consternation to stop their action
Here the important [thing] is to make a distinction between the doers or actors and the action.
Some of my Christian friends make a distinction [between] sin and sinner.
Towards sin we must oppose, where sinner is concerned, we should not lose our concern or compassion.

...Seeking Justice... Without Anger...
We have to do justice, but without anger, without hatred.
That's very possible.
Totally oppose their wrongdoing, but without anger, without hatred.
I think if [you have] anger towards the action is okay; not towards the person.
The person - if you keep anger, negative sort of attitude, then that creates their negative attitude towards you, then remains longer.


If you practice a higher level of forgiveness, then, without losing respect, without losing compassion, then there is much chance to transform that person's attitude towards you. If you lose anger, then, that chance...then, you create obstacle of that chance of a positive change.

Compassion for the Chinese...

We deliberately try to keep our compassion towards the troublemaker. [laughs]

Here, one story... I think you already heard the story of one Tibetan monk who spent more than 18 years in a Chinese gulag.
Once, in the early 80's he found an opportunity to come to India and join his previous monastery.
So, since I know him very well,
so on one occasion I asked
what kind of experience he had in 18 years in a Chinese gulag.
A few occasions he faced so danger.
Oh, I thought, some danger of his life.
But his answer is, "Danger of losing compassion towards the Chinese."
So that's a really sign of the practice of forgiveness.

Tolerance...

Tolerance is actually a sign of strength, not a sign of weakness.
The weaker people, deep inside,
Fear, insecure, then strong action immediately.
Full self-confidence, then there's real sort of chance of practice of tolerance and patience.
So these are the signs of inner strength.

Buddhist training
You see, training reduces anger, hatred through reasoning, through meditation,
I mean.. Reasons bring conviction,
conviction brings enthusiasm, enthusiasm brings effort, effort, constant effort, regardless of the time, one week or month, or years, or decades, constant effort eventually changing our mental attitude.

Things already happened, unavoidable, then anger, no help, only destroys your own peace of mind, so deliberately try to keep your mind more calm.
So, I think these are the foundations for implementing this difficult sort of practice.
So, there are different ways.

Keep Your Mind Calm
I think meditation, in general terms, makes your mind calm.
So, then, through a calm mind, then you can analyze in a more balanced way,
The disturbed mind, unbalanced mind, cannot successfully analyze the true situation of the reality.
So, therefore, meditation is helpful, useful to bring a calm mind.

Anger

Anger towards action, anger towards danger, I think maybe maybe good. That anger, is limited, the negativeness, I think, or destructiveness of that anger is limited. I think, anger towards a being, towards the actor, I think is more serious.

Education

The whole purpose of education is to try to know the reality.
That means try to reduce the gap between reality and our perception.
That means our action is becoming a more realistic action.

To achieve from birth, our sort of desire for happy days, a happy life, and overcome suffering of problems,
that's our basic right, that's really the purpose of our life.

The Power of Forgiveness 69:32
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWXkZjx1YwM

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