Indigo Lantern

I have a spiritual practice that I do regularly.

Maybe “practice” is too big a word. I recite two sentences every morning. But spiritual practice conveys more meaning than “spiritual two sentences”.

It’s not an easy practice, because it has to do with forgiveness. Lots of folks and creeds stress the importance of forgiveness. There is a current of thought out there, though, that maybe people are too quick to forgive, because in forgiving quickly, we sometimes cut ourselves off from the opportunity to feel and learn from our righteous anger.

I’m not sure what I think about forgiveness, whether we do it too soon or too late. What I do know is that I’m not that keen on asking for forgiveness. I’d be okay with asking for forgiveness if it didn’t imply that I’d done something wrong. This, of course, interferes with my self-delusion that I’m always a nice person.

I learned my spiritual two sentences at a meditation retreat fourteen years ago. Ideally, after completing the meditation retreat, one meditates every day for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. I’ve abbreviated the two hours to two sentences. I’m very economical, spiritually.

Every morning when I wake up, I repeat part of the metta (loving-kindness) meditation I learned those years ago:

I pardon, I pardon, I pardon

all those who may have hurt or harmed me,

knowingly or unknowingly,

intentionally or unintentionally,

through deed of body, speech, or action.

space

I seek pardon, I seek pardon, I seek pardon

from all those whom I may have hurt or harmed,

knowingly or unknowingly,

intentionally or unintentionally,

through deed of body, speech, or action.

My sense of what it means to forgive has evolved over the years. I used to approach asking for forgiveness from a position of “less than”, as if having to ask for forgiveness meant I had failed as a human being. If you think about it, that’s pretty silly. It’s not like I can expect never to hurt another person, just because I would rather not. And, as the sentences acknowledge, it’s possible to hurt or harm someone not only without meaning to, but also without knowing it. There could be legions of people I’ve insulted or hurt and to this day don’t know that I have.

I have gotten to know myself better with this practice. This hasn’t always been a comfortable experience.  I still sometimes catch myself “pardoning” other people for me doing them harm. (Freud would love that, I’m sure!)

As I continued the practice, I was struck by the balance of the two sentences. In the first sentence, I forgive. In the second sentence, I ask for forgiveness. Eventually, it dawned on me that there is a balance to those to actions in waking life, too.

I am harmed, and I also harm. I forgive, and I ask forgiveness. It’s not a give and take, precisely, since we may or may not be harmed by the same people we harm, but there is an ebb and flow in one’s life, I think. Sometimes I have something to forgive, sometimes I need to be forgiven.

To be honest, I’m still uncomfortable with the topic of forgiveness. I’d rather not have anything happen to me that requires forgiveness, and I’d rather not even imagine myself doing something that requires someone else to forgive me.

But I have found that saying these two sentences every morning has given me the opportunity to face this part of myself more consciously, which has been a good thing. As a result, I have grown in my ability to forgive and also in my ability to ask forgiveness. Maybe, this makes me a better person.

(If not, well… I beg your pardon. ;)