This article summarizes what I learnt at a one-day workshop on forgiveness by Fred Luskin and Rick Hanson. The workshop was held at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, which is about 20 miles north of San Francisco, on 15 August 2009.

Fred Luskin is the Director of Stanford Forgiveness Projects. His projects have helped especially those who lost their loved ones through war or crime.

Rick Hanson is the founder of WiseBrain.org. He is a clinical psychologist who has been meditating regularly since 1974.

Both speakers are well-known authors: Fred Luskin (amazon) has written books on forgiveness. Rick Hanson (amazon) has written books on mothers, neuroscience and meditation.

When is Forgiveness Necessary?

According to Fred Luskin, it’s time to forgive if the following sequence of events has happened (key phrases are underlined):

Step 1: Somebody did or said something that you took personally and felt hurt.

Step 2: You blamed the person for causing you harm knowingly or unknowingly.

Step 3: You built a grievance story, perceived yourself as a victim and were full of self pity.

By carrying grievances within, you are not at peace and you cannot enjoy your life. Some people harbor grievances for a long time, even after the persons who hurt them are long dead or behind bars. Forgiveness is helpful in cleansing ourselves of such grievances. It allows us to move on in life and have fun. Post forgiveness, past events that caused us grief no longer bother us.

Is forgiveness for everybody? No. According to Fred, there is a time for forgiveness. Soon after a traumatic event, a person is in shock. For example, a dad whose son was shot by a stray bullet a few days ago is unlikely to be in a mood for forgiveness. However, after a few months, he will.

What Forgiveness is Not

Forgiveness is not the same as forgetting. When you forgive somebody, you shall continue to retain memories of hurtful events. In contrast, forgetting amounts to erasure or suppression of memories, which is unhealthy.

Forgiveness is not the same as condoning bad behavior or choosing to say that words or actions that hurt you were okay or acceptable when they were not.

Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation with the person who hurt you.

Forgiveness is not the same as pardoning or absolving somebody of a crime.

Forgiveness should not be confused with learned helplessness, a technical term used in psychology.

If you forgive a person by telling them that you are forgiving them, you are also ascribing fault to them. Now, the other person may have hurt you knowingly or unknowingly. And it is a rare individual who acknowledges his or her own faults. So if you tell somebody that you are forgiving them, your act might actually be perceived as strange, unwelcome and condescending!

Forgiveness is all about you and does not involve the other person in the sense that the person who caused you grief need not express remorse, need not atone, need not even acknowledge his or her actions and need not approach you for forgiveness. So don’t wait for the other person to do anything! It’s all about your mind, as to how you perceive the past.

Love Those Who Have Harmed You

Fred Luskin mentioned that even though religion teaches us to love those who have harmed us, he found it particularly challenging to design workshops centered around this idea. For example, Jesus says (Matthew 5:44–45) “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” And Buddha says, “Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.”

One technique for developing compassion for your aggressors is to practice Mettā (loving-kindness) meditation. Sit quietly with eyes closed, say the following sentences in your mind and develop the corresponding feelings:
* May I be at peace.
* May my loved and cherished ones be at peace.
* May those I have never met be at peace.
* May those I have hurt, knowingly or unknowingly, be at peace.
* May those who have hurt me, knowingly or unknowingly, be at peace.
* May everybody be at peace.

A couple of points to take away from the meditation above. It is easier to forgive others if we first forgive ourselves. In other words, cleansing ourselves of blame is easier if we first cleanse ourselves of guilt. Also, the phrase ‘knowingly or unknowingly’ is important: many times, others have hurt us and we have hurt others unknowingly!

A Jataka story on developing compassion for aggressors was narrated by Rick Hanson:

THE GORILLA

A human once falls into a pit in a jungle. A gorilla (a Bodhisattva incarnation) strolls by. The human asks him for help. The gorilla is not sure if he can jump into the pit and get both of them out successfully. So he first practices with stones of increasing weight until he gains confidence. He then jumped into the pit, helps the human out and then clambers out of the pit. This effort makes him very tired. At this point, the human looks around and asks the gorilla to help him out of the jungle! The gorilla agrees but requests that he take a quick nap to rejuvenate himself. While the gorilla is asleep, the human feels hungry. He looks around and finds nothing to eat. He then looks at the gorilla and thinks, “Here’s a gorilla.. I can kill him and eat him.. Oh, well, he’s just a gorilla!” So he picks up a large stone and smashes the gorilla’s head with it. The gorilla wakes up. He’s still alive but stunned. He quickly realizes what has happened. He has blood flowing on his face, but also tears. Out of compassion for the human, he says, ‘human, you shall never be at peace again!’

On Memories

Early in the workshop, Fred Luskin spent quite some time on memories, emphasizing that whatever happened in the past is just a memory! It’s not there any more!

A story about two Buddhist monks was narrated to highlight the idea:

TWO MONKS AND A MAIDEN

Once there were two monks who were walking together. They reached a river where a pretty maiden sought their help to cross the river. The senior monk picked her up, carried her through the river and put her down on the other bank. Both monks then moved on. For two hours, the younger monk was disturbed but kept quiet. Eventually, he asked, “Old monk, you seem to have broken the vows of chastity! You picked the pretty maiden from one bank and carried her through the river. During all that time, you must have touched her, smelled her and generated lust for her. How do you call yourself a monk now?” The old monk was surprised. He simply said, “well, I just picked the girl up and helped her cross the river. However, you have been carrying her in your mind for the last two hours!”

Perspectives

“Being angry at somebody is like throwing hot coals on the other persons with your bare hands”.

“Hatred is like consuming rat poison to kill the rat”.

“There is a lot of misery in the world, much of which we never actually witness with our own eyes! What’s the point of getting mad about relatively smaller things?”

“There are two kinds of errors that we make: errors of commission and errors of omission. The latter ones bother you more in life.”

Personal Experience

My workshop experience was interesting. During the workshop, I was bored because I had heard the concepts being discussed many times before. It was only over the next few days that I realized the positive effects of the workshop. On the whole, I felt that the workshop was like an ‘immersion program’ which imbued me with strong positive feelings for several days to come.

A portion of the workshop was devoted to role playing. Participants were divided into groups of twos and threes. You had to share with others the identity of the person whom you had to forgive along with a brief narration of the circumstances that involved the two of you. One of persons would assume the identity of the person being forgiven and say things to you from his / her perspective. These exercises were helpful to me.

Within the first week after attending the workshop, I eagerly narrated what I had just learnt to five or six friends. These discussions helped me realize that forgiveness is a deep subject, with many facets worthy of exploration: spiritual, emotional and practical. The workshop helped me only scratch the surface. I have much more to learn and experience.

Articles

* 5 Tips for Mental Balance — The article is all about forgiveness!

* Three Stories of Forgiveness — Examples of forgiveness of the highest kind.