The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. We focused on what it means to incline our hearts to forgive. We can begin our journey of forgiveness by cultivating loving kindness by wishing for the well being of ourselves or others. We can examine our habits of thinking about others who we find difficult. Our hearts are always at the center of forgiveness. They express themselves in the language of the body. We can listen and feel to find our forgiving direction.
We continued to draw from Oren Jay Sofer’s book: Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love. Oren’s final chapter is a beautiful exposition of the many dimensions of forgiveness. One of the book’s gifts to me came in a final footnote to this chapter. It lead me to Love and Will, psychologist, counselor and researcher, Catherine Anne Lombard’s beautiful writings which explore a psychosynthesis approach to living. Catherine is an old college friend of mine. Her essay, Birthing Forgiveness, arises from her own journey of forgiveness.
We drew inspiration from meditation teacher and writer Larry Yang’s book, Awakening Together: The Spiritual Practice of Inclusivity and Community. Larry reminds us that “the restorative work of love most be done with love.”
We drew on meditation instructor Tara Brach’s book, Radical Compassion. Tara’s book offers guidance for working with strong emotions. You can visit Tara’s Resources on Forgiveness page for more of her excellent guidance and courses on forgiveness.
We heard Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s beautiful poem, December 31. While the poem references the end of the year, it speaks to the ongoing work of forgiveness. I find hope in her suggestion that our individual acts of forgiveness can illuminate our collective capacity to love each other.
Guided Reflection
Welcome. Last week we explored contentment. We reflected on the question of “What is enough?” Perhaps the grace of contentment enables us to take on other radical acts of love, like forgiveness. In the last chapter of his book, Your Heart Was Made for This, Oren describes the healing dimension of forgiveness as a “universal, timeless balm.” He believes “it is possible to cultivate forgiveness, to cease resenting harm and make peace with things we wish were otherwise.”
This sounds like a super power to me. Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is one’s self. It brings up the many transgressions that include and go beyond the self. Oren acknowledges that:
Forgiveness is a journey. It takes time, energy and effort to release our hearts from pain and resentment. We can cultivate the intention to forgive. . . . when the intentions to forgive feels unavailable, we can consider the possibility of someday wanting to forgive. Even this sets the process in motion.
I’m on this journey of forgiveness. Finding freedom from painful emotions of anger, fear and resentment will probably take the remaining years I have. It is too easy to learn to live with these emotions rather than doing the heart opening work of feeling and forgiving. I know the pitfalls Oren describes: getting stuck in pain and trying to evade it. The truth of my experience seems to affirm Oren’s view that “We can’t demand or force ourselves to forgive. . . . The heart forgives when it is ready.”
Forgiveness is a life long practice that embraces different dimensions of relationship. Oren sites author and meditation teacher Larry Yang’s invitation “. . . to think of forgiveness as . . . forgiving others, asking forgiveness from others, forgiving ourselves and forgiving life.”
I’ve been reflecting on the important relationships I hold with those I want to forgive and those I want to ask to forgive me. I reflect on forgiving myself and life itself. In her book, Radical Compassion, meditation teacher and therapist Tara Brach writes:
Forgiving can unfold . . . when we . . . look beneath our armor and bring self-compassion to what we find. . . . It takes courage to open ourselves to emotional reality, to accept our hurt, fear and loss. . . . This . . . softens our hearts and enables us to extend our compassion to others.
Tara explains that we can begin this unfolding by recognizing when we feel unforgiving toward someone. Someone toward whom we feel anger or blame. We can investigate how these thoughts and feeling express themselves in the body. We then inquire what the hurting part of ourselves most needs. We can respond with the inner wisdom of our awakened heart. We offer nurturing compassionate responses – perhaps placing gentle hands over wounded areas, healing messages or images. We take time to rest in healing experience of opening and allowing this inner nurturing. We can practice this inner nurturing as a way of softening our hearts towards others. One day a flower of forgiveness may open.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem, December 31, speaks to caring presence, forgiveness and our part of the continuum of great love, a love beyond ourselves.
I know it’s just another square
on the calendar, another tick on a clock
in the Royal Observatory in London,
but tonight feels like a good time
to forgive myself—for thinking
I know anything. For wishing for life
to be any different than it is. For
blaming anyone or anything.
For every time I have turned away
from helping someone else. Tonight
is the right time to touch the darkness
and feel how small I am, to expose
my fear for the future, my pain
of the past, and let all be flooded
by the shimmer of present mystery.
Tonight is the time to nourish
the pericardium of the world,
to take care of the one great heart
that beats in us all and trust
that our kindness matters always—
not in a conceptual way, but
in the very specific way we say hello,
the way we hold out our hand,
how we shape our words,
where we give of our time, and
how we open or wall off our thoughts.
I light a candle tonight, as every night,
and invoke my beloveds here
and not here. And though it’s a small act,
it unfastens some lock in me
and says yes, this is more
than a date, more than a timetable.
This is an essential point
on the continuum of love.
This is a chance to bring light.
Perhaps our many acts of forgiveness are essential points on the continuum of love. And the many invitations to forgive are chances to bring our light.
Let us explore how we might cultivate the intention to forgive. Before we begin, you might incline your heart toward forgiveness. It could be forgiving yourself or another person. You might turn toward letting go or a softening of anger or resentment. You might move toward an opening to see, hear or be with a difficult person or a life circumstance. Take a moment to sense what is true for you at this time.
I invite you to establish mindful presence. Create a posture of ease and stability. Take a deep breath or two and feel your whole being arriving. Feel breathing and relaxing. Be with body, heart and mind in this moment of stillness. Open to this precious aliveness.
Can you open to the feeling of kindness and well wishing for yourself? Can you wish that you maybe safe and happy, be peaceful and healthy, ease and free from suffering? Allow the well wishing and friendliness to fill your whole body and mind and heart. Feel your breathing as you abide in this heart space of well being.
As you rest here, you can bring other beings into this heart space with you, a being that has loved you unconditionally or a dear friend who loves you and whom you love. Sense this person’s presence. When you’re ready, extend wishes of kindness to this loving friend. Safety. Happiness. Peace. Health. Ease. Freedom.
Consider the possibility of extending well wishing and spaciousness to a difficult person in your life. Feel, breathe and notice what surfaces. You might sense the inner tensions that arise with this person. Feel whatever resistance that arises as you consider wishing this person well being. Perhaps you don’t want to feel the feelings that you’re feeling. Meet your experience with kindness. Let your feelings be in this open heart space. There is no need to make them go away or think that they’re wrong. You can listen to your heart. This may be a time to rest in the spaciousness of loving kindness.
Wishing a difficult person loving kindness is a good way to embark on a journey of forgiveness. “We cannot reason our way around, into, or towards forgiveness. Forgiveness comes from the heart, and it requires a great love . . . “ There’s no need to force yourself to forgive. The heart forgives when it is ready. You can incline your mind to forgive – whatever that looks like today.
If you cannot extend loving kindness at this time – consider how you see, hear and think about this difficult person. The Buddha said that whatever one frequently thinks and ponders upon, that will become the inclination of one’s mind. It’s important to be aware of the nature of our thoughts. Do they lead to what is beneficial or what is harmful? Are angry, fault-finding and resentful thoughts keeping you from seeing with compassion and understanding? Do these thoughts call your attention to the inner healing that may be needed?
In closing I share Larry Yang’s prayer of aspiration to remind us of the deep practices of the heart:
May I be as loving in this moment as possible.
If I cannot be loving in this moment,
may I be kind;
If I cannot be kind;
may I be nonjudgmental,
may I not cause harm;
And if I cannot not cause harm,
may I cause the least amount of harm possible
These aspirations can help us to incline our hearts toward kindness. Larry reminds us:
The restorative work of love must be done with love. This is the transformation of our heart that leads to the transformative liberation that we seek for our communities and for our world.
It is the path of living together, growing together and awakening together.