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Last week we asked whether there are some things that are unforgivable. I'd like to start today by sharing part of a story about something that might seem unforgivable. Roy Jordison was a protestant minister who practised on the Caribbean island of Grenada. He was killed one night when thieves broke into his home to rob him. Seventeen years later his daughter, a Buddhist practitioner, began to receive letters from one of her father's killers. He spoke of his remorse for the crime he committed. He said, “Through God's love and forgiving spirit I pray and hope one day I will be able to meet you face to face and ask your forgiveness...my prayers are not so much for freedom...but for eventual forgiveness. Because even though I were to obtain a Government pardon, without your pardon I would not be totally free.”
It took months before she was able to write back. When she did, she said that she hoped that both of them could find peace, and that she had no opinion as to whether or not he was released. Here are some of the thoughts that went through her mind:
... on my cushion some insights arose. Knowing them is easier than acting by their light, but knowing them helps.
Holding my heart tight in resentment hurts; releasing it is a compassionate act to myself.
I cannot remedy injustice by raging against it.
At times we all act out of greed, anger, and ignorance. We are mistreated and we mistreat others.
Forgiving ourselves and others is a commitment to life's continuation.
Forgiving is only optional if we don't need each other. Do we need each other?
Forgiving is a way of breaking the chain of retribution and suffering.
The most powerful act is setting the intention to forgive. Everything else follows from that.
This comes from an article that she wrote for Turning Wheel, the journal of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. The article was titled: “Making Peace with Myself.” I think it's significant that it's “Making Peace with Myself” and not “Making Peace with My Father's Killer.”
I have also been reading a book titled Forgiveness is a Choice written by a psychologist who is dedicated to the study of forgiveness. In his book he clearly states that there is no obligation to forgive. He says,
“People are morally obliged to be just and to refrain from injuring others. We are not obliged to be merciful. Forgiveness is a choice. It is a gift given to someone who doesn't deserve it.”
Today I'm interested in what your response is to this question. Is forgiveness optional or obligatory? And whichever of these you choose, when do you know that it's time to forgive?
When we ask whether forgiveness is obligatory, it's easy to think that forgiveness is a thing that can be given whether we want to give it or not. Then forgiveness becomes something like paying the rent, something that we do out of obligation, and not something that is given voluntarily..
But I think it's more useful to think of forgiveness as a practise, or even as a kind of relationship. The potential is always there waiting for us. When we say that we can't or won't forgive something, we've already acknowledged that there is something there asking for forgiveness. And that is a very early stage of the practise, of the relationship. We can go further and further and allow the relationship to grow and flower, or we can let our attachment and aversion freeze us on the spot. Either situation is temporary, but sometimes we can fixate on “temporary” for the rest of our lives. If we go further we may discover that there are many layers to the practise of forgiveness. We think we have forgiven something and then a few days later some other aspect of it rises to the surface and asks for our attention.
Last fall I heard a British poet named Michael Symmons Roberts talk about and then read a poem that he wrote on the occasion of the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center. It's a beautiful and sad and moving poem called “Last Words.”
Roberts was granted access to voice mail messages that had been left by people on the doomed flights or trapped in the twin towers. His poem was inspired by those messages.
In the interview he said that the striking thing about listening to all those messages was that while they could have expressed anger or hatred for the perpetrators of the attacks. Almost all of them were instead messages of love and continuance for husbands, wives, children, parents and others. Faced with the likelihood of dying soon, this was what people knew to be most important.
Buddhist teachings remind us that death is certain, but that for most of us the time of death is uncertain. What do we need to do to prepare ourselves? Do we need to “get even” with all those that we think caused us harm? Or do we need to make peace?
Some years ago, a reporter asked the Dalai Lama what he was going to do next with his life. His Holiness answered that he was going to prepare for death. The interviewer enquired about his health, and the Dalai Lama replied that he wasn’t sick, but that his body was impermanent. This inspired Buddhist Teacher Stephen Levine to take up a practise he called "one year to live." He decided in all sincerity to live as if he knew he was going to die at the end of one year. What would he do? What would you do?
One of the major components of his year was to reflect on his past actions and relationships and to practise gratitude and forgiveness for them.
I think this is a very inspiring practise. But we need to remember that there's no guarantee that we'll have a full year in which to do it.
I'd like to conclude with a line from one of my favourite songs by Mono Blanco, a musical group from the city of Veracruz, Mexico. The title of the song roughly translates as “The World is Coming to an End!” The song repeats the refrain,
“The world is coming to an end!
The world is coming to an end!
If some day you're going to love me, you'd better hurry!”
Thanks for your practise.
© 2007, Burai Rick Spencer