Forgiveness

[bouche]

A good take on forgiveness is to free yourself from hating those who hurt you. So to forgive is to free yourself from feelings of hate and to become happy and full of love once again.

Forgiveness is not necessarily meant for the person that hurt you.

[loco]

The book is about cultures, sub cultures around the world and related to the Buddhist philosophy of forgiveness and obtaining a sense of higher self through this emotion. It is not Christianity, and the 'jebus' comment was too funny!

The other electronic sub cultures I am researching are mostly different Buddhist communities, my friend advised me to come hear and seek out valuable insight.

[loco]

These seem to be the higher philosophies of awareness that have been reached by the 'enlightened'. I'm very glad to see this sort of insight floating around. Thank you

[questcequecest?]

A good take on forgiveness is to free yourself from hating those who hurt you. So to forgive is to free yourself from feelings of hate and to become happy and full of love once again.

Forgiveness is not necessarily meant for the person that hurt you.

i like this perspective, good point!

[Tricky]

How is the electronic world of self proclaimed Buddhism going to help you in any way shape of form? I'm down with the ideas of forgiveness you've talked about, but come on...

[allison]

Interestingly,by trying to discuss something serious I think you engaged a phenomena(sp?) of our(being the board)age demographic-while deeply needing and wanting genuine emotional contact our outer selves generally deflect it with cynical humor.That is-we are deeply serious people, want to be taken seriously but don't want to be seen as serious.Generally speaking that is.

In the humor vein most of your posts read like an alien watching a fishbowl-interested,intrigued but faintly condescending.Perhaps you don't mean it and perhaps it's just me.Too many anal probing tv shows(see that damn unseriousness again).

So forgiveness.

I think to truly forgive is superhuman-to completley absolve the person and harbor no lasting marks of the altercation.

I truly doubt I have ever truly forgiven anyone.I get over things quickly but the wound always stays.I may not manifest it,especially as that is socially unacceptable-we are supposed to forgive-but I still carry the hurt.

Forgiveness probably involves in its truest form a complete dissolution(maybe not the right word) of ego.Probably why forgiveness is a hallmark of the spiritually conscious and evolved-including "gods/goddesses".

The level that your ego directs your dealings with others will effect correspondingly your ability to forgive.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Good point on the tenor of this board, db (this from someone who's over-prone to seriousness and forgets that a lot).

On forgiveness - I think one of the problems we have is that we tie it in with "forgetting" - viz., "to forgive and forget". I think one of our biggest problems is that we do forget a lot in jumping the gun to forget, and then get burned yet again (there are plenty of interesting theories of and studies on repression that have been done to show how memories of wounding by significant others, such as parents, can be suppressed in service of maintaining the relationship).

I don't know if forgiveness is altogether possible unless both parties, the one who has been hurt and the one who did the hurting, each becomes genuinely wiser for what happened, and can reach of point of talking and thinking about it dispassionately - if they both become fully and equally human, knowing more about themselves and the other.

I don't know if I'm expressing that quite right; I think it's about each giving up a claim to power over the other, with whatever that involves.

As far as a Buddhist ethic is concerned, that seems to me to be pretty much on par; consciousness and compassion are equally concerned with being as fully aware as possible, and not sequestering away the unpleasant from awareness. We should never lose sight of anyone's suffering, including our own. Getting past it is something else.

So, can we have a copy of the book ?

[edger]

I generally seek understanding, as to why someone may have behaved a certain way, or decided to disregard my feelings. Or why they are perhaps so wrapped up in the process of seeking self-affirmation, and reinforcement/affirmation from those around them, that they lose sight of how they actually interact with the rest of the world (losing sight of the importance of responsibility, accountability, etc).

If I can understand why someone may have acted in a certain way, than I can atleast possibly begin to put myself in their shoes, and then decide whether I could have ever followed along the same wayward path (regardless of whether their path is leading them astray), if I had been granted different life circumstances. I'm not sure if this is the same as forgiveness. Yet if I can understand someone's motivations, or environmental influences, then I seem to feel better about things. It helps me to take things less personally.

[Sunshine]

I generally tend to forgive no matter what the case involves, because I feel if I don't forgive I will carry around anger (and that sucks too)

This doesn't mean I have to turn around a be a friend to this person, but I will forgive and carry on with the rest of my life.

But then how do you move on to the "forgetting part"?

You know....forgive and forget.....hmmmmmm...however, I guess you shouldn't forget because you want to learn from that lesson. Whether that involves you not doing the same thing to another, or maybe it will prevent you from trusting that type of person again.

I don't even know if that makes since...

(sigh....Friday)

[bradm]

But then how do you move on to the "forgetting part"?

Beer.

Aloha,

Brad

[Tricky]

It seems as though forgiveness is all about letting go and doing it for the right reasons. Letting go because of love, self love. Holding a grudge over someone seems like it can only create very negative consequences in yourself and others. Since all things in existence are intricately connected, holding a grudge against one person is holding a grudge against everything...until you separate things into categories and begin to identify with them, but then you lose track of the bigger picture and start to only see the smaller separate parts and not the whole...maybe this is where the ego is developed?

[headymamamyrna]

I totally agree with free yourself from hating those who hurt you.

If you didn't you would just carry a huge burden.

That way you couldn't be able to move on and become a better person and find out more about yourself.

So free yourself first from all the hurt and then move on.

Doing this is very hard in itself and it doesn't mean you have to forgive the person that hurt you.

As the saying goes forgive and forget!

I understand the forgive part but forget I am not so sure!

As long as you can move on and be happy with yourself and learn from your experience then you can be proud of yourself.

I hope everything thats said here helps with the Book!

Sounds like a book I'd love to read!

[Esau.]

G.F.I.D

[headymamamyrna]

What does GFID mean?

[bradm]

What does GFID mean?

Some googling turned up: "God Forgives. I Don't."

Aloha,

Brad

[ggrtrhhrtgg]

forgiveness--remit, let off, pardon.

remit--pardon, refrain from exacting or inflicting or executing.

pardon--forgive, make allowance for, excuse.

Hmmmm. Interesting subject; forgive/forget. I guess for me personally it has been easy to adopt a philosophy of forgiveness, since I haven't had an instance that has truly challenged my ability to forgive. Ignorance is bliss.

[headymamamyrna]

I would never have thought it meant that!

Oh well if one can't forgive then they will carry a lot of unecessary garbage!

[allison]

The more I think about it the more I think forgiveness truly is a power struggle.I was thinking about what variables ostensibly make it easier or harder to forgive.For instance-if someone does something unintentionally or inadvertantly its easier and more likely we will forgive them.The opposite is true if the deed was intentional.Partly becaues intent makes something more heinous but also because the intent conveys a power that the other person has inflicted upon us.If someone kills a loved one in an accident we can forgive.If someone kills a loved one on purpose we find it almost impossible to forgive.If the deed affects our pride(ego) it also gets harder.If I sleep with your husband when I'm drunk I bet it would be harder to forgive then if I run over your cat on purpose.Likewise if I mark a date in my appointment book and plot to seduce your husband I doubt I would be forgiven.But the action of forgiveness is supposed to be the same irregardless of the circumstances.

[bokonon]

I often wonder if there are things that are so heinous they cannot be forgiven. I know for myself that this forgiveness would come with a clause that the behaviour be rectified, and that is not really true forgiveness in the Buddhist sense. For example, a man that beat his wife could be forgiven, provided he stopped beating his wife. In the Buddhist, and, I believe, the true Christian sense, this is not true forgiveness as it is conditional.

I know in my own experience I can forgive people, even those who have hurt me badly. But once again, the behaviour that bothered me had to stop before I could even begin the process of forgiveness. Once I had forgiven those who had hurt me, I gained a greater understanding of my friends and I believe it strenghtened the relationship.

[bouche]

Just imagine a dog. A dog takes a big ol' crap on your most precious and expensive couch/chair/carpet.

If you aren't there for the event, and scold the dog, the dog will not know why you are flipping out on him/her. You would then be angry and feeling hateful. But if you forgive the dog and realize that it's a dog that just did what a dog might do, you can release that anger and get a new sofa.

[SaggyBalls]

that reminds me of new year's eve grade eleven.

I don't think mr. bertrand ever forgave me for soiling that sofa. His wife did my laundry that morning and they eventually got a new sofa.

i learned one great lesson. I never drank half the bottle before midnight since.

[balogna pogna]

To keep old wounds open is pure drama, to try and heal them is worthy of applause. If you cannot forgive someone and keep the wound open through conversation, thought, emotion, lack of connection, you are creating drama. Why do some wish to keep old wounds open and fresh, does it give them a false sense of power?

Maybe I'm looking too deep into this comment but it seems like maybe loco has screwed someone over so bad that they won't forgive him. Depending on what you did it may be easy for you to expect to be forgiven, but not so easy for the person(s) you hurt to give you another chance (thus making themself vulnerable to further hurt).

You can't just expect to be forgiven depending on the seriousness of the damage you've done.

[shainhouse]

it is hard to research something so specific in an anonymous ethnographic manner. Hippies are no more compassionate that other 'subcultures.' Most of us know each other in person anywho, so that skewed the data and adds in a variable that goes beyond the reaches of this online message board. Once again, how do you answer an unanswerable question?

[shainhouse]

I'm still surprised people haven't brought Freud into this conversation yet...

[allison]

Shainhouse-why are you surprised there is no mention of Freud? Just curious.I don't recall any specific theories he had in relation to forgiveness.Of course you can observe the phenomena of forgiving through a Freudian lens if you desired-id,ego,superego, reconciliation ,sublimation etc.

In general, the science of psychology has moved on from Freud though hasn't it?

Also,I think people were examining their own experiences or perceptions of forgiveness-not trying to relate those experiences to a system of thought.

Kind of like having a personal experience of "god" and not instantly trying to figure out which team( protestant,buddhist,muslim,wicca) you should join.