MIDL 22/36: Insight Meditation: Forgiveness

Stephen Procter guides you in the insight meditation skill of cultivating forgiveness to help your mind put down preoccupation with the past and abide in the present. As long as we do not forgive our self or others, we will be living a life conditioned by our relationship to the past. By putting down our pain through forgiveness, the pains of the past come to an end and awareness more easily dwells within the present experience creating the conditions for wisdom to arise. Support articles and instructions for this guided meditation can be found in the Free Online MIDL Insight Meditation Course by checking Stephens Procter's teacher profile.

Transcript

During this mindfulness training,

We'll be developing the skill of forgiveness to put down any pain from our past and live a more present life.

When practicing this meditation,

It is helpful to have the understanding that forgiveness does not condone what has happened to you,

But instead it says that what has happened may not be okay,

But I am not going to suffer over this anymore.

It is the putting down of your pain,

Putting down any suffering within your heart in order to live a more present life.

Start out by taking your meditation posture.

Now close your eyes very lightly and start to be aware of what it feels like just to be here.

Starting to relax through your body part by part,

Becoming aware of your forehead and allow,

Just allowing your forehead to relax,

Feeling the relaxation coming to your forehead.

Allowing the relaxation to sink down into your eyelids,

Your eyes,

Eyelids drooping,

Becoming heavy.

Feeling your eyelids to become so heavy,

It feels like you're falling asleep.

Relaxation flows down from your cheeks to your jaw and jaw opening slightly.

Feeling that relaxation coming to the whole of your face.

Eyes drooping slightly.

Feeling that relaxation in the whole of your upper body.

The relaxation flows down your arms to your hands,

Your fingers.

Feeling your fingers.

Fingers hanging loosely from your shoulders,

So relaxed.

Feeling your chest and belly allow your breathing to flow freely and naturally within your body.

Feeling that gentle movement of your breathing.

Feeling your breathing to become so gentle,

So relaxed,

You can barely feel it moving around.

Feeling the relaxation move down your legs to your feet.

Feeling your body becoming so heavy,

So relaxed.

And allow.

Feeling the chair or the floor to take the full weight of your body.

Giving up all effort in your body.

Feeling here deeply relaxed,

Safe.

Now gently coming back to the experience of just sitting here.

In developing forgiveness and putting down the pain of the past within your heart.

You first must start by forgiving yourself.

Now picture yourself in a happy state of mind.

Make a half smile on your face and picture yourself smiling back at you.

Now gently repeat these phrases asking for forgiveness for anything you may have done to hurt yourself in any way.

Repeating silently to yourself.

If I have done anything to hurt myself in any way,

Knowingly or unknowingly,

Please forgive me.

Picture yourself saying I forgive you.

Thank you.

If I have done anything to hurt myself in any way,

Knowingly or unknowingly,

Please forgive me.

And picture yourself saying I forgive you.

If I have done anything to hurt myself in any way,

Knowingly or unknowingly,

Please forgive me.

And picture yourself saying I forgive you.

Thank you.

Now pitch your arms opening up.

Plug in yourself accepting that forgiveness putting down the pain within your heart.

Now bring to mind someone you have had mild difficulty with within your life and begin by asking for forgiveness.

Gently bringing them to mind.

Make a half smile on your face and picture them smiling back at you.

Now gently repeat these phrases asking for forgiveness for anything you may have done to hurt them in any way.

Repeating silently to yourself.

If I have done anything to hurt you in any way,

Knowingly or unknowingly,

Please forgive me.

And picture them saying I forgive you.

Thank you.

If I have done anything to hurt you in any way,

Knowingly or unknowingly,

Please forgive me.

And picture them saying I forgive you.

Thank you.

If I have done anything to hurt you in any way,

Knowingly or unknowingly,

Please forgive me.

And picture them saying I forgive you.

Thank you.

Now picture your arms opening up,

Hugging them,

Accepting their forgiveness,

Putting down pain within your heart.

Now offer them your forgiveness for any pain they may have caused you within your life.

If you have done anything to hurt me in any way,

Knowingly or unknowingly,

I forgive you.

Picture them saying thank you and smile.

If you have done anything to hurt me in any way,

Knowingly or unknowingly,

I forgive you.

And picture them saying thank you and smile.

If you have done anything to hurt me in any way,

Knowingly or unknowingly,

I forgive you.

And picture them saying thank you and smile.

Now picture your arms going around them,

Putting down the pain within your heart,

Holding them in a gentle hug,

Sharing your humanity with them you desire to be happy.

Now gently release the hug and smile.

And take six slow gentle breaths,

Breathing out slowly on the out-breath,

Breathing out the feeling of forgiveness and love into the room.

Softening,

Accepting,

Embracing.

Feeling the forgiveness,

The love filling the room around you.

Feeling you like a warm blanket.

Feeling you feel safe,

Secure.

Now gently coming back to the experience of just sitting here,

The warmth,

The coolness of your body,

The heaviness as it relaxes and the touch.

Feeling to become aware of sounds around you,

Just allowing the sounds to come into you.

And when you're ready,

You can gently open your eyes.

Thank you for spending this time meditating with me.

Take care of yourself and have a wonderful day.

And goodbye.

Reviews

Forgiving myself, had me crying. Beautiful, thank you!

Ooo, the "f" word! Wow, what a great practice and I absolutely loved that the first person I worked to forgive was myself! I normally forget that when I go through forgiveness practices. Thank you, thank you, thank you! And thank you for this course!

Wonderful... 🙏🏻♥️

Though this meditation is so gentle, it brought up some very big emotions for me, which I hadn’t been expecting. I think that means that this is a really important one for me to practice with real loving kindness.

Beautiful guided practice starting with oneself and then moving to another person. Last 5 minutes is a short talk on important points in a forgiveness practice.

One of my favourite ever

I really liked this one too

A lovely meditation, SO hard to forgive oneself, I find, and this might help. Thankyou Stephen 🙏

Excellent meditation on a difficult topic, forgiveness. Lovely follow-up to the heart opening meditations. Thanks Stephen 😁

Beautiful, and I am sure this practice will help continue the Metta meditation, as well. Thank you, Stephen.

Peace is found in forgiveness.
Forgiveness appeared to me during this meditation as a giant slow flowing river, made of the forgiveness of each one of us as we forgive. The river is warm, and easy to step into. Forgiveness gives us freedom to become a part of this giant nurturing loving river. We all belong. We all can let go. We all can be open and release...each time we open the arms of our heart and soul to forgive, whether it is ourself or someone else.
Thank you Stephen for giving us this opportunity to find such peace.
Namasté 🙏

🐛🦋🌻⛵️🌊

So moving, very healing. A must on the spiritual path. Thank you so much, Stephen.

A mindfulness framework to put into practice forgiveness. Always starting with forgiving yourself. Looking forward to another introspective journey this week, that will hopefully give me another tool to be more present with all feelings, including letting go of the hurts that haunt. Thanks again Stephen!

Just checking Stephen. This is written as number 39 .....but you refer to it as 29 at the beginning 🕉
Excellent content as always 🕉

Lovely. Thank you

Thank you so much, this was very healing. Going through self loathing at the moment and was very interesting to notice what was underneath it. Will try and do this practice regularly for a week. Much gratitude to you Stephen.

Thanks for this great forgiveness meditation!

Had not realized how much I needed to do this meditation until I tried it! This will take some practice 🙏

Thank you. Now i have hope to leave a lot of pain behind. And find love again.