You are listening to a meditation from Sound Science Soul.
Imprisoned by your own resentment and pain,
Forgiveness is about freeing yourself so you can live more fully.
A simple,
But often not easy,
Approach to forgiveness is choosing empathy,
Compassion,
And unconditional love.
Viewing your perpetrators as victims of their own self-hatred and pain.
Seeing everyone and everything woven into the pattern of your existence and your experience.
We often wish suffering on those who have caused us pain,
But in doing so you deny that your happiness is connected to the happiness of others.
When society suffers,
You suffer as well.
Acknowledge that this person has a body,
A heart,
A mind just like you.
This person experiences pain and fear just like you.
This person is trying the best they know how,
Just like you.
And this person is a human being just like you.
If you can apply this thinking to all situations where you believe you need to work on forgiveness,
You can stop listening now.
But if you believe you need to do more intensive,
Deeper work,
Listen on.
This forgiveness exercise is taken from the work of Frank Ostaseski,
The director of the Zen Hospice Project,
And the author of The Five Invitations,
Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully.
In The Five Invitations,
He details this story.
Ostaseski was in Guatemala volunteering at a medical clinic.
One night a Mayan couple rushed in carrying their five-year-old son.
The child was suffering from severe stomach pain and needed emergency surgery,
But the nearest hospital was eight hours away by jeep.
He would walk it through the night without immediate help.
He knew of a Guatemalan colonel in charge of the troops in the area,
And in previous conversations the colonel had boasted about all the army was doing for the people in the area.
He ran to his house to ask him to use a helicopter to fly the child to the hospital.
But the colonel was angry when he answered the door,
And even after he told him the story about the dying child,
The colonel responded in anger about waking him up over an irrelevant Indian boy slamming the door in his face.
Ostaseski and the parents watched the boy die a horrible death that night,
And he went on to suffer horrible resentment against the colonel.
But one night he was listening to a news program about Guatemala when he was back home,
And he started screaming at the radio.
When he turned around his two-year-old son was cowered in the corner of the room,
Terrified.
He realized in that moment that his internal battle was tearing him apart and impacting the people he loved.
His son served as his motivation to work on forgiving the colonel.
Whenever he felt he couldn't forgive,
He chose to return to his love for his child and his desire to let go of his own pain.
This is the practice he used and what may help you in your own path to forgiveness.
Whenever those ill feelings towards the colonel arose,
He would say to himself,
I don't want to be chained to this resentment anymore.
Above his altar he placed a quote from the Buddha that said,
Hatred can never cease by hatred in this world.
By love alone does hatred cease.
This is an ancient and eternal law.
As an alternative here you could also place on your altar or somewhere you meditate this statement,
My perpetrators are victims of their own self-hatred and pain.
As another alternative you could create your own quote that resonates best with how you want to feel or what inspires you.
Next to the quote,
And this may be the most powerful piece of all,
He placed a photo of the colonel.
During his meditation practice he would look at both items,
The quote and the photo,
And say this statement,
For whatever you may have done to harm me in your thoughts words and actions I forgive you.
If you can use a picture of the perpetrator as a child it may even help you to connect into their innocence.
Often he would still experience anger in those moments but he didn't try to force forgiveness.
Instead he allowed himself to feel the pain and grief and offered it mercy.
When he looked at the photos he would imagine the love he has for his family,
Friends,
And his son to cultivate positive emotions.
While he often wished revenge on the colonel he knew the colonel would likely never pay the price for the boy dying.
And he realized it wasn't the story that hurt but the resentment he had built up.
He found it liberating to not be driven by dreams of revenge.
At first his practice was about the willingness to let himself feel the feelings.
It was about investigating what was standing in his way preventing him from forgiving.
So at this point the steps in this practice are creating a quote that inspires you,
Having a photo of your perpetrator to look at,
Saying the statement,
For whatever you may have done to harm me in your thoughts words and actions I forgive you.
While looking at the quote and photo and then cultivating positive emotions while doing so.
And then get to know this resentment by asking questions such as these.
How does the resentment feel in your body?
What happens in your mind?
Do revenge scenarios enter your mind?
Do you think about things you wish you had said or could say to the person who hurt you?
Does it make you feel more righteous or important?
What are the honest feelings in your heart?
Go beyond the anger.
Do you feel helpless,
Powerless,
Hurt,
Sad?
Consider this,
We sometimes mistake forgiving with condoning.
That you don't want to give up your weapon and let the other person off the hook.
But forgiveness doesn't release the other person from responsibility or even change them or lead to reconciliation.
In fact,
Justice or punishment may never come for this person and it doesn't mean allowing them into your life.
Forgiveness removes the roadblock in your heart and frees you.
It took about two years before Asa says he was able to feel he had forgiven the kernel.
While his actions were unforgivable he finally came to see that the Colonel's actions were the result of conditions in his life that led to ignorance.
In forgiving the Colonel he also realized part of the roadblock to forgiveness was needing to forgive himself for feeling he had failed the child that died as well as his own desire to kill the Colonel.
The journey helped him see that perpetrator and victim live within each of us.
In forgiving the Colonel he realized he could forgive himself too.
As with Asa Seske it could take months or even years on the path to forgiveness.
You can start with those hardest to forgive or maybe the easiest to forgive.
Sometimes it may help to forgive the hardest if your wounding was initially created there such as with a parent and then similar patterns emerge throughout your life.
You may then find it easier to forgive all those who came after.
I wish you healing and freedom on your path to forgiveness.
