Training In Offering Forgiveness & Being Less Reactive

A talk about ways we can encourage ourselves to let go of painful resentment and develop more patience and understanding.

Transcript

Lots of people coming to meditate on a cold Saturday in June,

Melbourne.

Very nice.

On this theme of forgiveness there's a few things that are worth considering.

First of all,

I'm interested to ask,

Does anybody's heart feel lighter?

Raise your hand if it does.

Half the room.

Very nice.

We have to get a mop and sweep it out.

Sometimes we have to do it a few times.

Sometimes we've,

As I was saying,

We can re-remember painful memories so many times we can end up really holding on to the past.

And it's good to become conscious of it.

It's good also to get a bit of a feeling of determination.

I think it's perfectly okay to be fed up with those thoughts in some respects.

And to want to put them down and not want to be pushed around by these memories anymore.

We want to be able to live in the present moment.

We want to have learned from the past.

We don't have to keep dragging it around.

So forgiveness is a very powerful tool.

Sometimes we can see,

We can bring to mind an experience,

We can try to offer forgiveness and we can see that we don't want to yet.

This is also valuable.

Because we can see,

Oh,

That's interesting,

Isn't it?

On one level there's this suffering,

And on another level I don't want to put it down.

So we have to do a bit of wise reflection there.

Challenge the way that we grasp at things.

Explore the reasons we might be grasping.

And explore the reasons why we might let go of that grasping.

And I think most people would understand that the reasons to let go of any type of grudge,

Any type of aversion,

Any kind of mental pain,

The reasons for letting go are probably superior to the reasons to hang on to them.

So we have to apply mindfulness and wisdom in those dark,

Sticky places.

I recently attended some commentary given on a text by the Dalai Lama.

And he said many things about how to relate skillfully with aversion.

And how to logically,

Analytically,

Undermine the assumption that anger is ever justifiable.

And so one of the things he said that if anyone ever manifests in your life as an enemy,

Someone causing pain and difficulty repeatedly,

He said the causes for that basically occurred way in the past.

So we always like to get into this story,

Isn't it?

That on this occasion what I did was quite reasonable,

And what they did was completely unreasonable.

And it's very obvious that I'm right and they're wrong,

And it shouldn't have been like this and it should have been like that.

And how many times do we think those kind of nauseating thoughts?

At least I think they're nauseating.

Now the fact that people do occasionally say things which are unreasonable,

And the fact that people say things that they shouldn't have,

Is according to our understanding of karma in rebirth,

Is because we did things which were unreasonable.

We said things that we shouldn't have.

We did things that we shouldn't have years in the past.

So it's good to diffuse this sense of innocent self,

Isn't it?

That I'm the victim and everyone else is a perpetrator.

That's in those moments where we're feeling like someone else did something wrong.

And then the same thing of course goes the other way around when we're feeling like we're the worst in the world.

And it's the same thing.

It's a bit inflated.

It's also very normal,

Very common.

There's that sense of,

I'm so stupid.

That was such a stupid,

I can't believe I did it again.

And just this sense of,

I'm hopeless.

And that whole added layer of self and stuff that we put onto experience.

And if we knew how many millions of beings were doing that in any one moment,

If we had that kind of capacity to be aware of six billion human beings' thoughts,

Like a Buddha probably has,

And you could see that this is one mind state based on a feeling and then getting a kind of a fixed perception based on a self view.

And of course,

If we understand that self view is a mistaken way of understanding life,

A bad habit,

A form of delusion,

And then we understand that several million others are doing the same thing,

It's good just to kind of contemplate wisely in these ways and think,

My story is just a story.

It's just one more story,

As real as it can seem and as painful as it is.

And I'm not above and beyond this.

I'm talking also from someone who makes mistakes and feels bad about it sometimes.

But we can apply mindfulness to it.

And I think this practice of forgiveness is very powerful for leaving the past behind,

Brightening the mind,

Allowing the mind to be lighter.

And then with that extra added energy that you get to kind of,

Okay,

Now I'm going to try because I care for myself and because I don't want to harm others,

I'm going to try to do a bit better.

I'm going to try to live a bit more skillfully.

Sometimes with the forgiveness practice we have to apply a discipline to it.

We might have to do it repeatedly.

Sometimes you forgive someone and in a moment you completely forgive them.

And then you might find yourself tomorrow thinking about them with anger again.

So then this is also understanding that because we felt hurt and we thought with some anger so many times that even after we forgive,

It's going to come back sometimes as an old memory.

It's understanding how sannyāra and perception work.

The more we give attention to something,

It's like a frequent flyer,

Isn't it?

And it'll be back again.

So it's that one again.

And then so we have to,

We make this decision that as a Buddhist practitioner,

I practice forgiveness.

So we understand that the mind is not self.

It doesn't follow orders all the time.

So when we forget again,

Right mindfulness is remembering.

Okay,

That's right,

I forgave that guy.

Okay,

I forgive you again.

And so you might have to,

Just as we add layers and layers upon our grudges,

When we consciously pick up the discipline of practicing forgiveness,

We have to do it repeatedly.

So it's a discipline,

A meditation discipline as well.

I think very helpful.

I think modern people have a bigger issue with things like guilt and collecting grudges against themselves and holding onto those things.

So I think there is quite a bit of work to be done.

And you can really apply your right view here,

Buddhist right view.

Nowhere in the suttas does it say that one should hang on to feelings of the past.

Never read that anywhere.

And I've only ever heard that thinking about the past too much confounds delusion,

Adds to delusion,

Adds to self view.

What I have heard repeatedly and what I read in the suttas and what I hear from masters in various traditions is that the key to your happiness is beginning now.

And that the past is something which is the past,

Should be put down,

Can be put down.

So I think it's good to feel confident about that.

And I think also when we live in a culture where a lot of people feel some guilt,

A lot of people are kind of defensive,

Everyone's got their pet grievances and grudges,

It might feel a bit strange actually to even have this idea that you can put it all down.

You might not even recognize yourself if you didn't have some grievances.

But it's good to stretch the imagination and imagine what would it be like to have no more things to forgive,

What would it be like to be loving and accepting of the past,

And at the same time wise and determined to live skillfully.

It's good to just give it some thought as one of our potentials.

Do you have a question?

How do I stop someone,

Like the hurt,

Someone saying something to you?

Yeah,

I don't think you stop the hurt,

But you offer an attitude of loving kindness to it.

And I think certainly greater wisdom can lead to more equanimity so that eventually someone might be saying something that hurts and you might not be feeling hurt.

This is,

I think,

The power of equanimity.

And equanimity,

One of the,

And it's not very often contemplated,

But good to contemplate,

Is equanimity is born from wisdom.

So understanding phenomena as they are.

One of the other things that the Dalai Lama said was,

If you contemplate the emptiness of phenomena enough,

It's impossible to perceive the other being as being solid.

You understand it as a collection of conditions which are there for that period of time,

But you understand that the body is made from other plants and other vegetables and the four elements,

And that the thoughts and the feelings,

The character is conditioned from previous births,

Etc.

,

Etc.

,

That basically it's appearing as a solid being for that period of time,

But destined to disintegrate.

He said one can get to the point where it perceives other beings like a dream or like a mirage.

And if you're perceiving someone as a dream,

What they're going to say isn't going to affect you so much.

And then the other thing is if you understand that what's being said and your feeling was conditioned by actions you did in the past,

There's also that sense of that diffuses the situation in the present moment.

It makes it much more kind of spacious.

You've got this samsaric perspective.

And I think it's possible to hear words which might hurt you now.

It's possible to understand that those same words might not give rise to a painful feeling.

If our own sense of self is a little more porous,

And if our own kind of perception of others is also more porous,

Then they're less solid.

But I think as an intermediate plan,

Right then when the person is saying the painful thing and you're aware of the feelings of hurt,

To have an attitude of loving kindness right there in your heart in that moment is also very powerful.

And I think it also has a very protective quality.

And so you might find that you experience less harsh speech towards you.

People have an intuitive sense when people have loving kindness for themselves.

And probably less likely to try to mess with them.

They don't understand it.

It's like the tiger in the jungle.

Very rarely would eat a monk.

And the tiger is a huge animal,

Big teeth,

All these claws,

Looks at the monk and don't know what that is.

And I'm not sure.

It's probably not food.

And they sense an intelligence and they sense a commitment to virtue.

And they want to leave it alone.

Because they're very aware of their power,

But they sense something,

I'm assuming they sense something that they're not familiar with,

A kind of a power.

And that's the human intelligence.

It's a little bit unpredictable.

Every other animal in the jungle sees a tiger and either freezes with fear or runs.

The human being looks back.

So we have this.

We have this powerful mind.

And if you can spread loving kindness to yourself right there in the moment when there's some harsh speech,

You'll also probably find less reactivity,

An attitude of accepting karma.

But of course,

If possible,

It's okay to avoid relationships where there's a lot of that as well,

To some degree.

There were occasions in the suttas where the Buddha said,

Where there are conflicts,

At times it's okay just to avoid the person rather than build more karma.

Sometimes we can't avoid them.

Then we have to have loving kindness for ourselves and try to do damage control.

Any other questions?

You mentioned forgiving.

You don't have to forgive.

Is there any advantage of carrying it over and remembering the next thought?

What that would mean is suppose you're aware that a person is capable.

So suppose there's a relationship and we get hurt occasionally.

It means that we,

Which what I mean by that is one still tries to have what I would call healthy boundaries and that you try to be assertive in the right moment when you need to,

To not allow people to hurt each other.

So that's what I mean,

Is that you don't just pretend that the world is a place where everyone is benevolent.

But what you do when you forgive is that you decide that you're not going to hold a grudge,

You're not going to have any feelings of wanting to retaliate.

And you're not going to just keep thinking about it like we're going to pick old scabs,

You know,

You're just going to let it heal rather than rehashing it.

So at the time of forgiveness,

You can forget about it after?

I think so.

I think most people find that.

My kind of inner terrain after 15 years of meditation disciplines is I find that thoughts which were so common about particular relationships hardly ever occur now.

So I really can see that it's like you don't have to force yourself to forget,

But you often find that those thoughts just don't,

They just don't come around anymore.

It's like once we've stopped,

Once we've let go of the painful memories,

The holding onto the pain of it basically,

With the feeling of really not wanting it to have been that way.

Because that's what it comes down to,

Is we don't want it to have been like that,

Which is a form of aversion.

And it's fair enough,

But after a certain amount of time we just see this isn't skillful,

This hurts.

I can put it down.

Do you think it's helpful if you now need to do the truths just to withdraw and work on?

Because I find,

And I'm not doing a lot at the moment,

But if I do those other crimes in the morning,

At the end of the evening something's happened and I wonder how that happened from the start of the day.

No,

I do think doing retreats is very important.

We have to,

It's like doing an intensive workshop to kind of,

It's like working out to make that muscle stronger.

Loving-kindness practice goes with mindfulness practice,

So hopefully we might do 10 minutes of loving-kindness and then hopefully eventually 50 minutes of mindfulness of the breathing,

So that's our hours of practice in the morning.

So that when throughout the day the thing which might affect the mind which wants to have loving-kindness,

That there's enough mindfulness there to know unpleasant feelings,

Unpleasant sounds,

Painful feeling in the heart,

About to have a reaction,

You know,

That there's enough mindfulness there to navigate the day.

So we need both loving-kindness and a lot of mindfulness.

And then I think just kind of also accepting that it's going to happen some days,

If you live in a big city,

If you have a lot of relationships.

Sorry?

In driving.

In driving,

Right.

This is interesting,

And the whole driving thing,

I've been contemplating that,

And I don't drive,

People drive me,

Thank goodness.

But it's interesting,

Isn't it?

I think it has something to do with the fact that there's a metal wall and a kind of a padded layer.

And I think also that perception of those people you don't know,

You're not in a relationship with intimately.

Something happens with our usual standards of the kind of hospitality that we would offer acquaintances and friends,

Or even people on the street if there wasn't a wall.

But it's basically an isolated bubble,

Isn't it?

So because,

But it's not an isolated bubble because you still make karma.

And I think that's an important thing to contemplate.

It's like you might feel that you're in this space where you can mouth off and say what you want and there's not going to be any implication.

But when we do,

We're making karma with our thoughts,

With our speech,

With the feelings that we consciously generate and radiate outwards.

So it's like the whole thing,

Once you got tinted glass air conditioning and heating,

What that did,

On one level more comfortable,

But on another level kind of a feeling of disconnection with those people.

But then this is where we have to deepen our commitment.

It's like whether they can hear me or not,

I want to be a nice person.

I want to make good karma.

I want to have loving kindness.

And whenever I lose my patience and express aggression,

That I'm conditioning myself to do that again.

So if we do it in the car and we do it enough,

Sure enough we're conditioning ourselves to behave that way so that when you're in a different social environment that kind of reaction is going to come out.

So it's important.

So maybe things like we,

In Buddhism we do these things,

We make aritanas.

So you make a vow,

You get in your car and you're behind the wheel,

Maybe bow on the wheel.

And I vow not to get angry at anyone from here to that place.

And I vow that anyone who cuts in front of me is going to give me an excellent opportunity for practicing patience and forgiveness.

And I'm going to thank them.

Seriously,

If you do it,

You set that kind of intention.

When you're in the car,

This is powerful if we do it daily.

And there's a thing,

It's my enemy,

My friend,

My enemy,

My teacher.

It's like,

Why?

Why are they your friend?

Because he's holding us,

Talking about that a lot.

It's like if you go and train yourself to understand that the difficult person is precisely the one that helps you purify negative karma and cultivate patience.

You can train yourself to have the perception that that one that's going to get off your nose and irritate you is really helpful.

And you can actually train yourself to feel some joy when they come.

Oh,

Here's my opportunity.

Obviously that takes some work.

But it can be done in the car,

Can't it?

It's like,

Okay,

I'm not going to get upset.

And if I do get upset,

I'm not going to yell.

You know,

We have to make that when we come into that bubble.

To set that intention,

Make that vow.

You know,

You can even do it.

If you have to drive every day in a traffic jam,

You can.

Why not?

May I be well,

May all the other drivers be well.

May I be happy,

May all the other drivers be happy.

May their cars not break down.

And may we all develop mindfulness.

Someone yells at you.

Thank you.

You know,

You can be a little bit extreme about it and train ourselves.

Train ourselves in a different way.

Let people go to the bathroom if they need to.

And then we'll have a half an hour of sitting meditation.

We have a nice outer expression of some of our activities today.

Some nice Sri Lankan ladies.

Taking out that which is rotting.

And decaying and old.

And throwing it away.

And leaving behind what is still fresh and usable.

Good analogy.

Reviews

Thank you. This was a nice change of perspective around resentments and hurts and bringing forgiveness and loving kindness to these situations. Very healing ❤️‍🩹 ♥️

Such wise, kind, and encouraging words. Thank you 🙏

Another wonderful talk! Thank you for these lessons. 💖🙏🖖🪷😘

A helpful talk on how right view, right speech, right mindfulness and loving kindness can help us be more skillful in our interactions with others and ourselves.

This was wonderful. Especially fitting to listen to during my commute. 😂 Really Lovely and thoughtful talk on forgiveness of others and self. Thank you.

Sweet Ajahn!!!! Thank you sooooo much for all your loving wisdom you share. 😊🤗

Very wise talk. Thank you. It also made me smile 🌹❤️✨

Wonderful talk. I am going to set the intention you spoke of before driving and practice loveing kindness when I drive. I like that you said to even take it to extremes by mindfully thanking people who cut you off!!
🙏

Thank you. Now I drive around saying "May all drivers be happy and safe". Really helpful.

this gives me great insight, so many people around me believe in anger. I prefer practising loving kindness

I found I truly enjoy each of his teachings. I find my self getting a deeper understanding in each. Thank you so much!

bouncing off his advice in a meditation to the effect that we benefit from practicing forgiveness and metta before samadhi, I came looking for more on the topic. This talk seems to follow on that meditation--or one like it, and I found them helpful as a pair.

Once again, deepest gratitude for your wisdom, humor🙏🙏🙏

A lot to think about and bring into practice. Made me chuckle in a few places. Thank you for the upload.

Very soothing and relaxing thank you so much

Extremely helpful recording.

Thank you - good reminders for a light heart.

This is amazing

This talk has prompted a few ‘aha’ moments for me which I am going to expand on in my journal. Namaste 🙏🏼

Excellent talk on forgiveness with many good analogies for real world application. Accessible teachings and wonderful voice. Thank you.