Forgiveness Practice for Oneself & Others - Meditation

After establishing body based awareness a contemplation on Forgiveness is presented.

Transcript

Beginning a little bit of meditation.

Allowing the mind to gather a little,

Arrive,

Settle.

So just taking some time to feel your bottom underneath,

Resting against the floor or the cushion.

Perhaps you can feel your hands resting in your lap.

Sweep some awareness over the body,

Bringing the attention to the top of the head.

Bring that awareness down over the face.

Just being mindful of the feelings on the skin.

There are always feelings,

Physical feelings in the body.

Sometimes we notice,

Sometimes we don't notice.

Pleasant feelings,

Neutral feelings,

Unpleasant feelings.

Little tingles,

Little itches.

Sometimes numbness.

Even numbness is a kind of a feeling.

So do we develop some interest,

What kind of feelings are there?

And then just knowing that,

Sweeping the awareness down over the face.

And then back to the top of the head and then bring the awareness down over the back of the head.

Feeling the back of the neck.

Feeling the front of the neck.

And then bringing awareness to the shoulders.

Just bringing a gentle quality of knowing to that area.

And then allowing tension to dissolve.

And then to breathe out,

You can consciously have the intention to put down this tension.

Breathing out,

Relaxing.

And then bring the attention to the top of the chest area.

And then move that awareness down the front part of the body.

From the upper chest,

Down over the stomach,

The abdomen.

Not making any judgments,

Suspending critical thoughts,

Just allowing the physical body to be as it is and just aware of the feelings as they are.

And down over the groin area.

Once again bringing awareness to the shoulders,

Back of the shoulders.

And slowly move that awareness down the back.

Down the upper part of the back,

That broad area.

And down the middle part of the back.

And down the lower part of the back.

And once again aware of the feelings of the buttocks pressing against the surface underneath.

Feeling the firmness,

Feeling that warmth.

Aware of the body in a sitting posture.

Putting the past week behind us.

Bring the mind inwards,

Generate some clarity.

And bring the awareness now to the top of the right shoulder.

And slowly move your awareness down the right arm,

The upper arm,

The outside and then the inside.

And over the elbow,

The outside of the elbow,

The inside of the elbow,

Right arm.

And down over the lower right arm.

You can feel the back of the right hand perhaps pressing against the leg.

And then aware of the feelings on the right palm.

And then mindfully sweep your awareness from the base of the thumb to the very tip of the thumb.

And then the next finger,

Aware of the feelings at the base,

And sweep your awareness to the very tip.

And then the middle finger.

And then the next finger.

And then the little finger,

Sweeping the awareness from the base of the finger to the very tip.

And now gently move that awareness back up the hand,

Back up the lower arm,

Over the elbow,

Over the upper arm.

Gently over the right shoulder,

And once again bringing awareness to the left shoulder.

And then gently bringing that awareness down the left arm,

The upper arm,

Over the outside and then the inside.

And down over the elbow,

Outer elbow,

Inner elbow,

Left arm.

And down over the lower left arm.

Simply mindfully aware,

Practicing awareness of mindfulness of feelings in the body.

And when we practice breath meditation we're also practicing with mindfulness of feelings.

So when we train mindful awareness in this way,

Very similar,

Same objective.

Simply to be aware of feelings as they are,

Dropping conceptual thoughts,

Dropping judgments,

Allowing the past to drop away and not worrying about the future,

Not picking up the future.

Putting everything down except the meditation object,

Which is this awareness of feelings.

So then feeling the back of the left hand.

And then the left palm.

And then sweep mindful awareness from the base of the left thumb to the very tip.

And then the next finger,

Aware of the feelings,

Mindfully aware from the base to the tip.

And then the middle finger.

And the next finger.

And then the little finger,

Sweeping awareness from the base to the tip.

Now move your mindful awareness gently to the right hand side of the bottom.

And then move your awareness down the right leg.

Sweeping awareness over the outer side of the thigh,

Over the right leg.

And then the inner side of the thigh,

Slowly.

Down to the knee.

And then sweeping that awareness down the outer right lower leg,

The shin area,

From the knee to the ankle.

And then from the back of the right knee,

Sweeping awareness down over the calf muscle to the ankle.

And then sweep that awareness down over the upper foot,

The upper side of the right foot,

From the ankle to the base of the toes.

And then once again from the ankle,

Sweeping awareness down the underside of the right foot,

The sole of the foot to the base of the toes.

And then sweep that mindful awareness from the base of the big toe to the tip of the big toe.

And then the next toe.

And then the next toe.

The next toe,

Sweeping mindful awareness from the base to the tip.

And then the little toe.

And then gently move that awareness back over the foot,

Up over the shin and the calf,

The right leg.

And up over the thigh.

And once again we start from the left hand side,

Just aware of your bottom,

On the left hand side and moving your awareness down over the thigh,

The outer side and the inner side.

Aware of feelings.

From the hip down to the knee.

And aware behind the knee you might feel some warmth,

Some heat.

And then mindfully sweeping awareness down over the right hand,

Lower leg over the shin area from the knee to the ankle.

And then from behind the knee over the calf muscle to the ankle.

And then sweeping mindful awareness from the ankle to the base of the toes,

The left foot.

And then from the left ankle under the foot,

The sole of the left foot to the base of the toes.

And sweeping your awareness from the base of the left big toe to the tip.

And then the next toe to the tip.

And then the middle toe.

And then the next toe.

And then the little toe,

Sweeping awareness from the base of the toe to the tip.

And now allow this mindful awareness to become more broad and just have a sense of this body sitting mindfully aware of the entire body.

And then bringing this gentle quality of awareness and sweep it over the body with some kindness,

Gentleness and kindness.

And then taking the attitude in the mind,

Making sure there's nothing harsh,

Bringing a quality of understanding that we're doing this because we care for ourselves.

So we have a kind,

Friendly intention.

No matter how much we like to be mindful,

No matter how much we want some samadhi,

We start with an attitude of allowing things to be exactly as they are.

And then bringing our awareness to the in and out breaths,

The entire in-breaths and the entire out-breaths.

Being aware of the feeling of the breath as it comes in at the nose,

Down through the chest and into the abdomen.

And aware of those feelings in those areas as the breath leaves the abdomen,

The chest and the nose.

If using numbers,

If noting is helpful,

You can do that.

Noting one at the nose,

Two at the chest,

Three at the abdomen.

On the in-breaths,

Three at the abdomen,

Two at the chest,

One at the nose on the out-breath.

Aware of the in-breaths,

Aware of the out-breaths.

And to the extent that you're able,

I'm encouraging you to bring this attitude of acceptance,

Of kindness,

Of love,

Also to the awareness of the breath.

Breathing in,

I allow this body to be exactly as it is now.

Breathing out,

Dropping any judgments.

Dropping any aversion,

Any irritation to the extent that you can,

Putting all of that down.

Aware of the in-breaths,

One in-breaths.

And aware of the out-breaths,

One out-breath.

And to the extent that you're able,

I'm encouraging you to bring this attitude of acceptance,

Of kindness,

Of love,

Also to the awareness of the breath.

And to the extent that you're able,

I'm encouraging you to bring this attitude of acceptance,

Of kindness,

Of love,

Also to the awareness of the breath.

So the reason we come to a meditation workshop is because we do care for ourselves,

We care for our life.

We want to be happy,

We want to be more peaceful,

And we want to let go of various types of unsatisfactoriness,

Irritation and suffering.

And that's very good.

So becoming conscious of that intention,

We can wish ourselves well and do some loving,

Kindness meditation.

Breathing in,

You make the wish,

May I be well.

Allowing some warmth to arise in the area of the heart.

Breathing out,

May I be happy.

Breathing in,

May I be well.

Breathing out,

May I be happy.

And just for a moment,

Including everyone else in the room in the awareness,

Keeping the eyes closed but just being aware.

And just like you,

Hoping to be happier in their lives,

To have less suffering,

So we wish them well as well.

Breathing in,

May I be well.

Breathing out,

May everyone here today,

May they also be well.

And then coming back to the perception of your own life,

Your own body,

Trying to go a little deeper right into the very center there,

The area of the heart.

Truly wishing yourself well.

Breathing in,

May I be well.

Breathing out,

May I be happy.

And so I warned you all the other day that we would be doing some work on forgiveness on this day.

I'm going to ask a few questions,

Ask you to consider a few things,

And keep meditating.

I'm quite sure that each of us have made mistakes in this life,

In our life.

I'm sure that we've all done things which in hindsight became obvious were mistakes.

We've all done some unskillful things,

And we've all said some unskillful things.

When we allow ourselves to think about some of those mistakes,

There can be some uncomfortable mental feelings.

Feelings of remorse,

Feelings of confusion,

Perhaps a certain quality of defensiveness,

Trying to defend the various things that we did,

Trying to justify,

Make excuses.

Or maybe we don't make excuses,

Maybe we don't justify,

Maybe we just get angry at ourselves.

I shouldn't have done that,

That was stupid.

When we bring mindfulness into this area,

Once again we're dropping the judgment.

We're just bringing this quality of mindful awareness to this human experience.

And that each of us in this room has made big mistakes.

This is part of what human beings do.

We make some very good choices,

We do some very skillful things,

We're often very kind.

And every now and then we make mistakes.

So we've been practicing loving kindness for a few minutes.

I encourage you now to try to bring this quality of loving kindness into that space where there is some regret.

Breathing in,

May I be well.

Breathing out,

May I be happy.

I think one of the first steps in this area is to try to bring this quality of acceptance.

So dropping the thoughts,

Dropping the judgments,

All of the squirming,

The inner squirming.

And just allowing the fact that human beings make mistakes,

I've made some too.

And I have to live with the karma of that.

And bring some loving kindness and some equanimity,

It's like this,

Fountain of Samadhi likes to say.

Breathing in,

I offer a quality of loving acceptance for the experiences of the past.

Breathing out,

May I be well,

May I be happy.

And now for the sake of our meditation exercise you can think of one occasion in particular where you said or did something or perhaps didn't say or do something which did result in another being feeling hurt or feeling neglected.

And we're going to practice offering the attitude of forgiveness.

Breathing in,

I allow this experience to have been exactly what it was.

Breathing out,

I forgive myself.

Breathing in,

I allow this experience to have been exactly what it was.

Breathing out,

I forgive myself.

When we forgive we don't have to forget.

Try to learn from our mistakes.

When we set the intention,

I'm going to really try not to do that kind of thing again.

But since I did do it,

I allow it to be exactly as it is.

Breathing in,

I allow the past to have been what it was.

Breathing out,

I forgive myself.

And just once again applying a little bit of wisdom.

What is the past?

It's memories.

We have those memories perhaps and feelings.

Pleasant feelings,

Neutral feelings,

Unpleasant feelings.

When we apply bare awareness,

Mindfulness,

The past really is gone.

So with forgiveness meditation we allow the past to be gone.

Breathing in,

We are well.

Breathing out,

We are happy.

Putting the past down.

And leaving it where it is,

In the past.

We don't have to walk around holding any grudges,

We don't have to have any guilt.

Put down those negative mind states,

Mindfulness of dhammas,

Mindfulness of mind states,

Chittanmipasana,

Aware of wholesome as wholesome,

Aware of unwholesome as unwholesome.

And if it's unwholesome we put it down,

We don't need it,

It's not useful.

Breathing in,

We are well.

Breathing out,

We are happy.

Hiryana otapa,

Wholesome dhammas,

A sense of conscience,

A wise sense of concern or fear of the bad consequences of unskillful deeds,

That's wholesome.

But it doesn't feel heavy,

It doesn't feel burdensome.

The Buddha called these two qualities the protectors of the world.

Breathing in,

We are well.

Breathing out,

We are happy.

The past is just perceptions,

Ideas,

Memories,

Thoughts.

Putting it down and coming into this new moment with a fresh clarity,

With a little more wisdom.

Better able to live mindfully and skillfully.

Breathing in,

We are well.

Breathing out,

We are happy.

We all make mistakes but from now on I'm going to make the best of this life.

Just resting in that gentle mindful awareness,

Offering an attitude of kindness.

One in-breath,

One out-breath.

Next in-breath,

Next out-breath.

I'm just going to leave this meditation for about another ten minutes.

If anyone needs to gently change their posture that's okay.

I encourage you now to just be very mindful of the breath.

Try to be mindful of the entire in-breath and mindful of the entire out-breath.

In a couple of minutes we're going to practice forgiving another person.

For now just mindful of the breathing.

Breath coming in,

Nose,

Chest,

Abdomen.

And breath leaving abdomen,

Chest,

Nose.

And breath leaving abdomen,

Chest,

Abdomen.

And now we're going to allow a few thoughts,

Allow the concept of feeling of self and of other.

Bring to mind an occasion where somebody did something that hurt your feelings.

And it's normal.

There is gentle speech,

There is harsh speech,

There are skillful actions,

There are unskillful actions.

When you come into this human birth you'll have a chance to experience all of these.

Think of a time someone said something that hurt your feelings or did something that hurt your feelings.

And then we contemplate the fact that a painful experience is already painful.

When it occurred it was painful.

But if we hold that feeling of hurt,

A sense of grudge,

We don't want to let go of those painful feelings.

This is an extra added element of pain which isn't necessary actually.

This is the part of the suffering that we can put down.

Once again as I was talking about before,

The past being made up of memories.

But actually being completely gone.

So now because you want to be happy,

Because you want to live with mindfulness,

Because you want your mind to be a bright spacious light space.

You can decide to forgive this person and that experience.

When we forgive it doesn't mean that we have to forget,

It just means that we're not going to hold any grudge,

We're not going to feel any anger,

We're not going to carry around with that feeling of hurt.

We're putting it down.

So breathing in,

May I be well.

Breathing out,

I forgive this person,

I forgive that occasion.

The degree to which you can sincerely bringing to mind the perception of that occasion and that person.

Breathing in,

May I be well.

Breathing out,

I forgive this person,

I forgive that occasion.

And I allow the past to be where it is.

And you can even ask yourself,

Since that painful occasion,

Since that painful experience,

How many times have you thought about it?

And how many times have those thoughts given rise to new painful feelings?

And then consider as an offering to yourself and as an offering to this person,

You can just say this is enough.

Enough painful feelings,

Enough painful memories about that occasion.

I'm dropping it,

I'm putting it down.

I forgive you.

Breathing in,

May I be well.

Breathing out,

Forgiving the past,

Putting it down.

Breathing in,

Coming into this fresh new moment,

Starting again.

Breathing out,

Letting the past be where it is,

Forgiven.

Breathing in,

May I be well.

Breathing out,

May I be happy.

And once again we can drop any feelings,

Any thoughts about self and others,

Just coming back to the meta meditation and the breath meditation.

Simply aware of the in-breath and simply aware of the out-breath.

Breathing in,

May I be well.

Breathing out,

May I be happy.

Allowing the warmth of loving kindness in the area of the heart,

May I be well.

Allowing things to be just as they are.

Breathing out,

May I be happy.

And just spending the last two minutes of the meditation,

Aware of the feelings of the breath.

Nose,

Chest,

Abdomen.

Abdomen,

Chest,

Nose.

Knowing feelings as feelings,

Knowing the breath as the breath.

Simply knowing one in-breath and one out-breath.

Allowing the warmth of loving kindness in the area of the heart,

May I be well.

Reviews

These meditations have been so meaningful. Thank you.

Thank you for this very helpful and healing meditation. It went straight into my heart.

Thank you. This message found me again at an ideal time.

Helpful guidance to navigate forgiveness and rest in equanimity. Thank you

I wasn't expecting this to make me as upset as it did; however, that seems to be the point of it inorder to let things go to become more at peace.

Amazing! Will surely come back to listen when needed.

My first teacher when I began daily practice six years ago, and still a favourite. Thank you.🙏🏼💫

The initial body scan is excellent. Once in the body, the breath is introduced as the meditation object. Then into loving kindness with the session left open ended.

As someone who hits perhaps 30 minutes when alone, this session helps me practice for longer as well as helping me become a more skillful meditator. Ajarn is my personal trainer!

Thanks.

Thank you for this.

This helped me to let go of the past in a way that it doesn’t define myself in the present moment anymore. Such a great meditation. Thank you 🙏❤️🙏

Thank you so much. 🙏

So good thank you very much- I appreciate your direction and room for allowing. And the length is great for growing my practice.

Thank you, Ajahn.

helpful, kind, timely. All ways excellent.

One of my favorite! Please upload some more of the guidance you have on your website. Gratitude 🙏🏻

wait. what? *everybody* screws up? who knew?

I grew up in a family in which it seemed like you were always being hauled into juvenile court and accumulated a rap sheet that could never be expunged.

My way of dealing with the past has been to constantly run defensive plays in my head. I knew it was unskillful-- it's painful and uses up an awful lot of bandwidth-- but did not know how to stop it until now.

If you recognize yourself here you will find this meditation skillful and healing. I believe it will be especially good for laying the groundwork before moving on to more challenging forgiveness practices.

a beautiful balm. Thank You Ajahn.

I have no words to describe how good this teacher is.

So needed to hear this today Ajahn,
Thankyou 💚🙏💫

Simple, effective, profoundly healing, thank you!