Forgiveness

I'm writing something about forgiveness at the moment, and have realized in doing so that I'm not great at forgiveness, so I thought I'd follow ren and Jestor's advice and actually start a thread for once to ask what you all think.

Basically...

I feel that forgiveness is essential to Jediism. Without true forgiveness we cannot hope to let go of the past. I have always felt that the key to forgiveness is accepting that the past is unchangeable and almost irrelevant to the present. But that said, sometimes forgiveness is easier said than done, particularly if we feel overly hurt by a wrong that has been dealt us in the past. It is one thing to want to forgive, but another entirely to be able to truly and completely forgive and bear no ill-feeling whatsoever.

So how exactly do you go about learning to accept that the past is in the past?

I believe that the past is a unchangable thing and it is to be learned from so we dont make the same mistakes. As for forgiveness if we let someone that has wrong us in the past still effect us in the present then they still have power over us and we cant move forward with out resolving what has hurt us in the first place.

Its easier to write this done then to do it forgiveness can sometimes not be a easy thing but it is better for us in the end.

I think this is a great topic…

I agree. I find that even though I am aware of the insignificance of individual past actions and I have “moved” on, when you were hurt it will still hurt if you dwell on it. I think that the “hurt” causes us to want to protect ourselves from being hurt again and we (auto) through up a defense against future pain.

There are those who I felt I was betrayed by in my past. I have forgiven them. But, that does not mean that my faith in them or trust has been restored!

Often I find that I have forgiven the individual, but not the action or deed that caused the injury. I also would be interested to see what the Jedi community has to say on this topic.

This is a pretty close subject to me personally because of my own past as V-Tog knows, and I'm sure it is to many others on here as well, and I'm happy to share my own thoughts.

I think one of the most important aspects to learning how to "forgive" is actually learning just what forgiveness is and what it exactly means. A lot of people think that to "forgive" should include completely forgetting every time, but I certainly don't feel this is or ever should be the case.

I also agree with Clint above, when he says that as long as we do not enable ourselves to forgive, that person still has power over us. I currently have somebody in my life who still has a bit of a hold on me. However, I am taking measures to learn about the true nature of the situation and of my own reaction to it.

Though at first glance it seems like a completely different subject, I am currently doing some research around how and why most people procrastinate. For me specifically, this is personally connected to a past situation of mine and to my ability to forgive this person and I'll explain why.

My situation involves severe criticism on my character and personal abilities as an individual and as a father throughout much of my life by this person. I have recently figured out through my own research, that this criticism has long lingered in the back of my head and has split me in two, making me both judge myself and be the "victim" of my own judgement in turn. The judge side of me has taken on much of the mindset that was imposed on me in the past, and because of this, it has lead to years of long-term procrastination with countless things. While I judge myself and feel like a victim and powerless over the outside world, I am both trying to force myself to do and be something and at the same time I am rebelling against this forcing of myself in turn, which is pretty much the mechanism of procrastination (at least for me).

The thing I am learning is the fact that I don't procrastinate because I'm lazy, nor because there is anything else wrong with me. Procrastination is a completely normal mechanism that everybody has that is used for coping with inner stress, and is brought about by how a person deals and responds to that stress.

I'm currently learning how to release myself from myself, eliminating both the judge and the victim and realizing that I do not "have" to do anything or "be" anybody. I am beginning to learn that I am the master over my own domain and that instead of being obligated to everything or any one thing, I actually have the free will power to pick and choose everything I want to do, and through this power to "create" my life, not to "survive" it.

This is one part of my journey to learning how to officially forgive the person who put the many judgements on me (and through those judgements also tried to pull some very critical stunts on me), by releasing myself psychologically from the past between us. I feel it will come much more authentically and easier when I have regained enough confidence and trust in myself to know that I do not require this other person in my life or mind in order to feel happy and maintain my own power over myself and my life. My goal is having enough confidence and trust in myself to personally feel that I Can forgive this person and that it doesn't mean anything defined by the "judge" or the "victim" that was created within me.

I think it has a lot to do with some idea of "submission" to a person who has wronged us (an idea of letting the other person win), which is what comes to mind when thinking of my own situation through the eyes of the inner judge and victim. If I eliminate the victim mindset, I then grant myself power to realize that there is no "losing" to anybody. If I eliminate the judge within me, I realize that there is no need to "win" anything either. I think this is a vital part to understanding how to forgive a person.

This comes to mind:


As two Zen monks walked along a muddy, rain-drenched road, they came upon a lovely woman attempting to cross a large mud puddle. The elder monk stopped beside the woman, lifted her on his back, and carried her across the puddle. He set her gently down on the dry ridge of the road as the younger monk discreetly admired her charms.
After bowing politely to the woman, the two monks continued down the muddy road. The younger monk was sullen and silent as they walked along. They traveled over the hills, down around the valleys, through a town, and under forest trees. At last, after many hours had passed, the younger monk scolded the elder, “You are aware that we monks do not touch women! Why did you carry that girl?”
The elder monk slowly turned and smiled. He said, “My dear young brother, you have such heavy thoughts! I left the woman alongside the road hours ago. Why are you still carrying her?”

If you carry all of the anger and pain of the hurt with you, the person or situation that wronged you will still have power over you, so much so that the after-effects of the incident can far outweigh the event itself. But, as Proteus said the goal isn't to simply forget what happened to you. In my mind the goal is to let the feelings associated with the event leave you, and then you are left with the important matter - trust.

For me the trust aspect of forgiveness is the more important question. I can forgive someone for wronging me, but if there was trust between us and that trust has been broken, that is something not as easily mended. So while I can let all my anger towards someone fade away, the trust I had in them is forever left in doubt, even if it eventually gets rebuilt there'll always be the nagging doubt in my mind as to whether or not I can trust them again.

Forgiveness is very personal to each of us and clearly some wrongs are harder for people to forgive than others. I sympathise with anyone who has been wronged to such an extent that it drastically effects their life but I have also known people who's lives have been ruined because of an inability to forgive.

More often than not the greater the wrong done towards me the more I pity the individual who did that wrong as there must really be something missing in their life to behave in such a way.

If we truly adopt the Jedi mindset of living in the moment then no wrong from the past can touch us. It is not my opinion that we should forget, a lesson should be learned, but rather than feeling bitter about a wrong doing I believe that we should be quite the opposite and be thankful for this opportunity to learn and to practice our ability to forgive.

'It is in pardoning that we are pardoned...' - from the Jedi Creed

'That which does not kill us makes us stronger.' - Friedrich Nietzsche

MTFBWY

To Forgive Others:

If you are friends with the person with whom you think you should forgive...

Then you don't really know them. They Should Have Already Been Forgiven!

You only need to forgive yourself for not understanding the situation and your misjudgement of their intent.

If you do not know the person whom you think you should forgive...

Then why do you want to know them, put them out of your mind!

To Be Forgiven

If You THINK In Any Way You Have wronged Someone, No Matter Who It May Be...

Ask For Forgiveness!

Proteus wrote: I think it has a lot to do with some idea of "submission" to a person who has wronged us (an idea of letting the other person win), which is what comes to mind when thinking of my own situation through the eyes of the inner judge and victim. If I eliminate the victim mindset, I then grant myself power to realize that there is no "losing" to anybody. If I eliminate the judge within me, I realize that there is no need to "win" anything either. I think this is a vital part to understanding how to forgive a person.

This is a really interesting viewpoint - I have never thought of it like this before. I think that perhaps, for me, this might be a part of the difficulty - a feeling of that I am in the right and whoever it may be is in the wrong and deserves retribution (ie. no forgiveness). In eliminating such notions I suppose there suddenly becomes no reason not to forgive, or no justification for harboring negative feelings.

Wescli Wardest wrote: I find that even though I am aware of the insignificance of individual past actions and I have “moved” on, when you were hurt it will still hurt if you dwell on it. I think that the “hurt” causes us to want to protect ourselves from being hurt again and we (auto) through up a defense against future pain.

Again, something I had not really thought about - the idea of protecting ourselves from hurt. In offering true forgiveness we are committing ourselves to once again trusting the person who has caused us pain - a difficult thing to do. It makes me think of things like when young children touch something really hot, like a cooker hob/ring, and the pain reflex ingrains it into them that they shouldn't touch it again. In their brains, the hob is now inextricably associated with pain, based on that past experience. Same could be applied to people, making it much harder to forgive, through no particular fault of our own.

Hal_littleeye wrote: I can forgive someone for wronging me, but if there was trust between us and that trust has been broken, that is something not as easily mended.

Same as what I was just saying in reply to Wescli, do you not feel that forgiveness means sort of having a fresh start? As a few people said, I do agree that when we forgive it does not necessarily mean that we should forget, but to me not being able to trust someone again is an indicator of not having fully forgiven them. I know (and can see from this thread) that the idea of forgiveness is very subjective though, so I'm not saying that you're wrong, I just see it a little differently. (I enjoyed the story by the way)

To preface my post, I'd like to quote a few words from the first line of Psyddhattha's reply: "Forgiveness is very personal to each of us..."

With that in mind, I'll share a few words and note again that the way I accept the past is what works for me but may not work for others (it certainly doesn't work for my wife when she brings this topic up to, haha).

Our mind is constantly in motion. My goal in leaving the past in the past is forgetting the past, i.e. not even thinking of it, unless it has a clear benefit to me in the moment.

I don't think of the time that I failed to help a person pick up some items they dropped. That has no use to me as I work or play or hang out with my family. But if I see someone drop their items now, at this moment, my mind keys in on the situation from the past to help me make the same or a new decision in the present. In what happened to me, I helped this person in the present pick up their things and I again moved on.

I forgive myself by not dwelling on my mistakes, the same as I forgive others by not dwelling on past grievances; but if the moment were presented where I had an opportunity to do good in a past situation where I failed, I have the past recollection brought to my attention at the moment to decide what to do again.

This works the same for someone that wronged me. I forget the past where I was wronged, but if the opportunity is presented again for the wrong, I recall the past situation for the present moment to make the best decision for me in that moment.

(Hope I didn't sound preachy; this is just what I've found to be beneficial for me.)

MTFBWY,
LTK

I definatly try to forgive, but not forget, as I think everyone needs to be responsible for their actions. I do think forgiveness can be a step on a path for better understanding and it might seem to be a process of removing particular attachments.

I also though think its important to walk away from negative influences - so whilst I'm happy to be understanding, if it involves causing me emotional pain then forgiveness alone might not be the solution. Either the emotions can be healed by the offender stepping up to redress the cause, or I'd have to take measures myself to deal with any unwanted emotions. Violence for example is replacing the emotional hurt with perhaps inflating ones ego, and as a result replacing ones emotions seems to just shift the shadow of emotional dominance from one person back to the next, which is not in line with Jedi philosophy IMO.

So since I wouldnt want someone elses behaviour to further influence my own in this scenario, perhaps a better way to manage it myself could be to look at how perhaps memory might work by grouping similar things together. When talking about memories with unwanted emotions attached, it might make it easier to forgive someone by surrounding that memory with a broader context of similar experiences. This might be achieved by going out and experiencing the same circumstances with different people and with different outcomes, including positive ones. Doing this might reduce the strength of that particular memory enough so that it stops being an emotional memory... hopefully enabling a more meaningful forgiveness then the words alone.

Its such a diverse topic though, I'd have to also remind myself that I might not have the full picture of what happened to cause the feelings. Many times I've been in a situation where I was deliberatly left out of important information, which changes the nature and intentions of the incident. Sometimes that missing information might not make any real difference (especially to the other person) but it can change the context sufficiantly to reduce it from an emotional memory to just a normal memory.