Allowing Non-Forgiveness & Considering 3-Pronged Forgiveness

For this 3/7/22 Insight Timer Live talk: "I invite discussion on forgiveness in general; from experience; as an ideal; as consideration; phrases for three-pronged forgiveness practice [1) forgiving another/others 2) asking for forgiveness 3) forgiving self]; not condoning actions; and next level front-loading forgiveness." I also touch on: not condoning actions; self-responsibility; lifting of burden for oneself; Ajahn Chah boulder story; anger; heart pain; etc.

Transcript

This is Josh Dippold from Integrating Presence.

Today's session is called Allowing Non-Forgiveness and Considering Three-Pronged Forgiveness.

And then the description I have written up.

For fifteen minutes or so,

I invite discussions on forgiveness in general.

Forgiveness from experience as an ideal,

As consideration.

Then I'll do these three phrases for forgiveness.

Forgiving others or another.

Two,

Asking for forgiveness.

And three,

Forgiving self.

Maybe also get into this being not condoning one's actions,

Or the other person's actions or one's self,

Actions from one's self.

And then a next level kind of front-loading forgiveness,

And I'll maybe talk about that too.

Forgiveness can be in religious context and it can be in a non-religious context.

I'll look at it here more in a spiritual context.

And a lot of people look at forgiveness as,

I wouldn't say a lot,

But some people look at forgiveness as a weakness,

A submission,

Maybe there's some perception of some kind of failure,

Or something's blameworthy,

Or there's a loss involved.

If I have to forgive or ask for forgiveness.

And ideally,

Many people would really like to forgive,

But they just can't at the moment.

And either it's not sincere,

Maybe they're not ready,

Maybe they're exploring how to do it,

Etc.

If any of these are the case,

What about allowing non-forgiveness?

If you're already in a state where you can't forgive somebody,

Can't ask for forgiveness,

Can't forgive yourself,

Why not just allow what's already there anyway,

Which is non-forgiveness.

Allow yourself not to forgive.

I mean,

There's been people who have gone through so much pain,

Torment,

Trauma,

That it's totally okay not to forgive in those instances,

Right?

There's no value judgment for that,

And it's kind of like a release,

A burden off one's shoulders,

Especially if someone's thinking,

Oh,

I should forgive this person,

Oh,

I should ask for forgiveness,

But I really should,

I'm a bad person for not forgiving.

If in a situation like that,

I feel that's not really a helpful place either,

Can allow non-forgiveness,

Not forgiving,

With the intent to someday possibly forgive,

But being honest with ourselves,

Right?

So I had a yoga teacher once,

A really respectable gal.

It just seemed like she was wary of forgiving.

They kind of set up a flag for me,

Not in any way,

But sometimes we look up to people and then things might kind of be off from what we thought.

And I know for me,

In my own practice,

When I first started meditation practice,

A lot of stuff was coming up from the past,

Stuff that I had forgotten about,

Stuff I had kind of filed away.

Yeah,

All these things I forgot that I had done to myself,

Things I had said to myself,

Things I've done to others,

Things I've said to others.

And so my heart,

There was this pain in my heart region,

And then on the back part of my heart too.

And then when I came across these teachings of forgiveness,

It was such a relief for me.

It almost went to the extreme though,

Where it was like all these people in my past,

I was going and finding them and seeking them back out to say,

I'm sorry about such and such.

And I guess there's a time and place for that.

You have to really use your discernment.

I think I went a little bit overboard there with that,

But it was like this huge relief when I asked someone for forgiveness or forgave them.

And it's about self-responsibility too,

It can be,

Even though if we were hurt or wronged,

There's a,

You know,

What are we going to do about it?

Well,

We take self-responsibility.

Do we allow ourselves not to forgive?

Well,

That's part of self-responsibility I would think too.

Also when we're ready to forgive,

There's a self-responsibility there.

You know,

This doesn't mean not condoning actions,

All right.

When actual harm is done by forgiving someone or asking for forgiveness,

It's not saying what was done or said was in any way right or should have happened,

Right?

That's not what we mean by forgiveness.

Very important point because a lot of times they get conflated,

Confused that,

Okay,

Well,

This person really did some harm,

Okay,

So why should I forgive them?

I really harmed this person.

They're never going to forgive me,

So why should I bother?

This is separate from actually approving of harming.

That's not what we're doing here.

Lifting of a burden for me when I did this,

It was like this huge weight off my shoulders.

There's this teacher,

Andrea Fella.

I think she teaches with Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City,

California sometimes.

This was years ago when she was telling this story about how she was so angry at a past partner and she would just sit in meditation or be thousands of miles away.

Then she would realize that,

Oh,

Me still being angry at this person isn't going to hurt them or harm them or get back at them.

It's only harming me,

Hurting me to have this begrudging anger towards them.

There's this,

I don't know the exact passage,

And you guys can look this up in the Buddhist text where anger is like a hot coal,

Right?

Where we think we're going to take it and throw it at someone.

A lot of times we get burnt with that hot coal.

There's another story where someone comes to the Buddha and says something like,

You know,

Just starts berating him and telling the story very shoddily.

But he kind of asks,

Well,

Do you ever have guests come to your house?

He says,

Yeah.

He goes,

Do you ever serve them food and give them gifts?

He goes,

Yeah.

He goes,

Well,

What would happen if the guests wouldn't accept the gift?

Who would it belong to then?

He said,

Well,

It belonged to me.

Then the Buddha said basically in the same way,

Your anger,

I don't accept it.

I do not accept your anger.

There's also one other Ajahn Chah story I really like.

There's a whole lineage now,

Ajahn Chah in the Thai forest tradition in Theravada Buddhism.

Very kind of earthy character,

Lots of really neat sayings and teachings in real life.

He was walking along with a group and they come across this huge boulder and he goes,

Hey,

You know,

Is this boulder heavy?

They go,

Well,

Yeah,

It's a huge rock.

Of course it's heavy.

He goes,

Well,

Not if you don't pick it up.

The other day I was picking up trash along the highway here.

Well,

It's like a four lane road and on one side is a forested area and then on the other side is a huge retaining wall.

It's just that people are just passing through there.

Really no one lives directly there.

It's either an opportunity for people to throw out trash or maybe it just collects there from the wind and then it gets stuck there and nobody picks it up.

I don't know if anybody has gone and picked up trash with lots of traffic by,

But it's energetically challenging if you have any kind of energetic sensitivity.

Just think of all the people that have driven past that and kind of gave,

If they even noticed it kind of like,

Oh,

This is yucky.

Why is there trash there?

Or you know,

Just mindlessly driving by it.

It's kind of a reflection on consciousness.

So I can forgive everybody that passed by that didn't pick it up.

Everybody that passed by that gave blame and judgment to other people that threw it down.

Forgiving everybody that came by who actually threw litter on the ground.

This three-way forgiveness phrase,

I'm going to copy and paste it into the chat.

The self-forgiveness was like a big game changer.

Growing up in a Christian tradition where I wasn't taught and the one I grew up on,

And that I could forgive myself too.

And it was like,

Wow,

That's possible.

That's a thing.

I've lived this long and didn't know that.

It's just unbelievable.

Although some would say it's repenting,

Which is,

I guess,

Similar.

But to those I may have caused harm,

Knowingly or unknowingly,

Through my thoughts,

Words or actions,

I ask you to consider forgiving me.

To those who have,

The second one,

To those who may have caused me harm,

Knowingly or unknowingly,

Through their thoughts,

Words or actions,

I freely offer my forgiveness as best as I am able to at this time.

And for any harm I may have caused myself,

Knowingly or unknowingly,

Through my thoughts,

My words,

My actions,

I offer my forgiveness.

I forgive myself as best as I can at this time.

And these also can be considerations,

Right?

If we're not able to do anything,

Or even want to do these,

We can still possibly consider it for future experimentation.

Finally,

This next level forgiveness thing that I like to do now is I front-load forgiveness.

So to any and everybody that I will ever encounter or meet,

It's just kind of like this broad swath that you're already forgiven for anything you could possibly ever do beforehand,

Right?

So you're off the hook that way,

But that does not condone your action.

Doesn't mean that I approve of any kind of harm you do,

Even on the most subtlest levels.

And the same way with anybody in my past,

In current relationships,

Leading with kind of an assumption that you're already forgiven.

So I know this sounds almost crazy to a lot of people,

And I get that.

But there it is,

You know?

All right.

Well,

Thank you all for joining.

May you all have and be blessed with and welcome in and allow the greatest ideal and optimal energy and consciousness for the rest of your day,

Afternoon,

And night.

Reviews

Excellent. Thank you, Joshua.