Against The Stream

The experience of forgiveness is a momentary release. In reality, we don’t (and can’t) forgive forever, only for that present moment. This is both good and bad news. The good part is that we can stop judging ourselves for our inability to let go of resentments once and for all, completely and absolutely. We forgive in one moment and become resentful again in the next. It is not a failure to forgive; it is just a failure to understand impermanence. The bad news is that forgiveness is not something that we will ever be done with; it is an ongoing aspect of our lives, and thus it necessitates a vigilant practice of moment-to-moment letting go.

Although it has been over twenty years since I felt my first moment of freedom from the pains and resentments of my past, I still practice forgiveness on a daily basis. Now it is no longer a chore: it has become a simple and natural way of responding to my heart/mind when feelings of hurt, fear, injustice, or betrayal arise. I now understand that freedom from these negative feelings is not a distant goal, but is available right here in this moment. If I let go and respond with compassion and forgiveness, I will be free. If I continue to grasp at and wallow in my painful righteousness, I will continue to suffer. And of course at times I do still choose the path of suffering—but less and less. Knowing that freedom is readily available has drastically changed my life. I no longer have to tolerate unnecessary sorrow.

I share this with you to let you know that if I can do this practice, so can you.

How does forgiveness show up in the 8-fold path as a practice to free us from suffering?

A talk and guided meditation offered by Rachael Savage from Rebel Saints Meditation Society in Seattle.

The Four Things We Cling to Which Cause Suffering and The Way to Let Go

How many of us have lived the life of constantly trying to avoid, replace, ignore and postpone anything that feels difficult, that stinks, that is boring, or is unpleasant?

In meditation we develop compassion, so that we can stand in a line and not suffer about it, so that we can be stuck in a traffic jam and not suffer about it, so that we can smell a disgusting smell, see unpleasant things, hear unpleasant things and develop a sense of tolerance, ease and compassion.

So that we can come to a place where we can say, “I have this really unpleasant thing happening, but I've developed the skill of being with the unpleasantness. I don't have to suffer about it anymore.”

Really, compassion is a very practical and necessary skill that we have to develop. A skill that we can develop through sitting meditation, through training the mind.

Compassion is not how our minds are innately wired; it's not a natural thing that any of us are born with. It is counter instinctual to meet all pain with compassion.

And there is also a lot of discernment that has to be developed on the path so that we can ask ourselves the question, “is this the kind of pain that I should be meeting with compassion in the form of just accepting it, caring about it? Or is this the kind of pain that I should do something about other than compassion?”

A lot of the times there is something that we can do, but we have to develop that wisdom, that discernment.

The definition of mercy is to not cause harm in a situation where we have the power to cause harm.

If you feel like I did, that compassion is pretty elusive a lot of the time.

The definition of compassion, I think, is caring. Caring about pain – our own pain other people’s pain.

If compassion feels like too high of a bar, mercy is this middle place. It’s this place where you don't even have to care that much, you just are not making it worse.

It's not like, “I'm so loving and empathetic and tender towards the pain”…it's more of… “I'm just going to choose not to make it worse than it already is. I'm going to – as an act of mercy on myself, or on you, or on the world – I'm going to refrain, to the best of my ability, from causing harm on top of an already difficult circumstance, or an already painful phenomena.

Ultimately, we are trying to develop compassion…Mercy is a way station. It is a good sign. It is part of our practice, but ultimately, we're going towards compassion, towards loving kindness, towards equanimity and appreciation, towards deep forgiveness of ourselves and others.

And so, I truly think that mercy is such an important thing to practice, to reflect on, to understand; that in order to go from, “I hate pain to I care about pain”, we have to get into this place of, “I don't quite care about it yet, but I'm in this middle path, this middle place of, I'm just trying to not make it worse. I’m just trying to not hate it. I'm just trying to not hate them. I'm just trying to meet even my enemies with mercy. I don't love them yet. I don't have compassion for them yet. I'm just trying to be merciful enough on myself and on others to not meet the experience with hatred, with aversion, with judgment, with ill will, with wishing harm upon whomever.”

The Buddhist perspective on mercy is so different than our cultural idea of mercy. As Buddhists, we're not so interested in these ideas of theism and external powers. Were interested in this humanist psychology, this empowering understanding that you have the power, that I have the power to ruin my ******* life. I have the power to cause all of this harm to myself, to cause harm to other people, and that as part of our path of awakening, we're going to choose to incline, to develop, to influence our own mind, our own speech, our own actions to have mercy for ourselves and for each other. We’re going to not make it worse.

The path of liberating the heart, of dharma practice, has been likened to a long and arduous trek through an unknown wilderness. At the beginning of our journey we meet someone or read about someone who has been on this same journey before us, who has gone through the wilderness of his or her own heart/mind and returned transformed, awakened, and at ease with all life. We are inspired; we have gained some faith that this journey is worth taking. We pack up our bags and head out along the path. In the beginning we are filled with the energy and exuberance of our faith, which drives us forward. For some this faith is sustained for a very long time; for others, after a short time the journey becomes increasingly difficult, and feelings of doubt begin to override feelings of faith. What seems to be true for everyone is that, at certain points along the way, we will face the attacks of Mara: we will feel lost in the desert or terrified in the haunted forests of our mind. These are the times when we need to reflect on our earlier faith, on the verified progress we have made. In these difficult times it is also important to remember that we were warned about these deserts and forests, to remember that the places that scare us, that seem hopelessly dangerous, are indications that we are get- ting closer to the destination. Often the fear is just Mara’s (or the mind’s) way of trying to keep us stuck in the safe but miserable norm of a survival-based existence.

Along the journey of awakening there will certainly be ebbs and flows in the amount of faith that we have. The key is to continue our forward momentum even on the days that we are experiencing more doubt than confidence.

Faith is good; doubt is natural. Proceed! The revolution awaits.

30-minute guided meditation followed by a dharma talk.

Cultivate the good. Cultivating the good means uncovering, recovering the wisdom and compassion that are present as potential in all of us.

This means that we begin to align our intentions, actions, and mind-states with a vision of the awakened heart—with what the Mahayana Buddhists refer to as our “Buddha nature”— that is, the innate potential for awakening. There is a natural awakened aspect of the heart that is within all of us, though obscured. The good news is that it can be unobscured. How?

By walking the path. By putting into practice the values and theories that the Buddha taught and exemplified. By making the effort to abandon the unskillful and cultivate the good—and not just on the meditation mat but in all aspects of our lives. We begin with the intentional aspect of meditation, the formal sitting practice, but then we expand our intentionality to all aspects of our life, including the workplace and (perhaps the hardest and most important practice) our relationships.

How we behave matters.

This isn't actually how karma works, but it's what my father taught me, who was my first Dharma teacher. He said, “Just think about your karma as a karma savings and loan. We all have an account, and as you reflect on your life, think about this; Is your account overdrawn as there has been more selfish, fear based, negative karma – which is withdrawal – withdrawal – withdrawal – withdrawal…Or are you starting to get balanced, as in a check book, as you continue on your spiritual path: deposit – deposit – deposit – deposit?

As we move into the next few chapter of ‘Heart of the Revolution’, into the practices of loving kindness, compassion, forgiveness and generosity, along with all of the topics in this course/series of talks, I want you to remember that every time you say, ‘may you be at ease’ this is a karmically wholesome thought to place in your mind. Every time you say, ‘I forgive you’… even if you don't mean it yet …or, ‘please forgive me’, this is karmically wholesome. This is a positive. It's a deposit in your own karma savings and loan.

It’s where we start. If you're suffering a lot…for sure you're overdrawn. When you come to the Dharma and you're suffering a lot, it's because – for sure – you're overdrawn. Overdrawn because you're reacting to the pain of life in a way that's making it worse. The Dharma teaches us to respond to the pain of life with compassion, with forgiveness, with karmically good actions that start to alleviate the suffering. And the more you make deposits, the more karmic action and wholesome positivity you get.

I invite you all to join me for the next few months for a Monday night course on my book “Heart of the Revolution”. Join me next Monday night, 7pm PST in person for, ‘Training the Monkey Mind; The Path of Practice for the Wild at Heart’.

Development of a balanced mind and heart is the final quality to perfect in this 10-week series.