The Power of Forgiveness: Gelong Thubten

so my talk is about the subject of forgiveness I think we called it the power of forgiveness so I want to start by assuming that we all agree I think most people agree that the qualities of love kindness compassion these are qualities that everybody respects whether you're into meditation mindfulness spirituality or not just in ordinary daily life everybody is drawn to people who are kind when we talk about people and we say oh he's a nice guy or she's a nice girl we usually mean because they're generous kind forgiving not you know not wrapped up in themselves so much so these qualities are something everybody respects and then of course in the whole journey of meditation mindfulness spirituality you could say that's the main point the development of compassion the development of a kind heart I think we all have that we all have the seed of that everybody knows that feeling of kindness and love and compassion but as a meditator we want to develop that we want it to sort of spread beyond its limitations one of the biggest limitations for all of us is that our compassion tends to be sort of conditional you know we we help people and it always happens that we help somebody and then at some point they do something or they say something that we don't like and what's the first thing that comes into our head after all I've done for them how could they I mean that's a very natural response that we all have but it shows that our compassion is still not mature it still sort of bound up with ego and limitations and as a mindfulness or meditation practice no we're trying to sort of expand beyond those limitations we're trying to develop a more unconditional compassion so of course within that comes training because the beautiful thing about meditation and mindfulness is that we we understand that we can develop qualities in the mind we can develop deeper qualities just through simple training whether whether you're into religion or not makes no difference is just the meditation as a science is the science of the inner mind so whatever way you're practicing it you're trying to develop a more open heart so of course within that forgiveness is a major component and if you really think about it seriously it's true to say that in order to develop spiritually we need people to be horrible to us otherwise how are we going to develop true compassion it's easy to be compassionate towards small fluffy animals and children and easy but when those when those tests come those obstacles when we feel that people are pushing our buttons winding us up hurting us harming us whatever then then that's that you could say that's the that's where we meet our edge and that's where the forgiveness training comes in so in that sense there could be a kind of gratitude oh this this person is giving me a chance to develop forgiveness this person is the it's my meditation aid this person is helping my meditation so if we can develop more of that attitude that then then life becomes very different doesn't it because we want to develop compassion we want to develop kindness partly because it helps others but partly because it helps us the more we more we explore our mind the more we explore mindfulness meditation the more we discover that our selfishness is the very thing that makes us suffer because with our selfishness you know we all know what it's like to be selfish and we know how it feels it when we're selfish we get very wrapped up in our own problems you know we get very absorbed in our own pain it's almost as if our problems become bigger than they really are because we put them under a microscope and we obsess about them a lot and on the other side of the on the other side when we become more open generous compassionate then our problems are sort of in perspective they become less important so our own suffering sort of lightens through the development of a loving heart and of course within that forgiveness is the key so how how are we going to train in forgiveness can we think about it as a training not just a random thing that you know how it feels when you forgive it's such a relief such a relief but can we train in that can we train and develop that so I think there are two approaches and I think both are important and it's good if we can so think about both of these I would call one of them would be through intelligence and the other one is through wisdom when I'm talking about intelligence I'm talking about using our thoughts in a productive way thinking about situations in a in a way that's helpful and when I'm talking about wisdom I'm talking about something more direct more about working with the mind working with awareness looking at the mind so I think both these approaches so the intelligence approach is to look at the situation's we find ourselves in situations of conflict or situations where our forgiveness has been tested and actually think about them more deeply first of all to think about the whole notion of gratitude gratitude that this person or this situation is giving me an opportunity I I want to meditate I want to develop compassion I want to develop love this person is giving me a tool through which I can develop deeper forgiveness in a way just through thinking in that way about the person you've already forgiven them it's like you're forgiven before you've forgiven just by seeing seeing it as an opportunity or a teaching everything in life can be seen as a teaching or something that helps us grow so that's one thing another thing I think is to think about the situation and think about how I think this was mentioned earlier in one of the presentations when somebody else is doing something we don't like we don't really look at it from their point of view do we we look at it from our point of view but compassion is all about connecting with the suffering of others connecting with what's underneath so when somebody is behaving towards me in a way I don't like what is it that stops me forgiving it's usually a feeling that they deliberately they deliberately they meant to hurt me they it's deliberate we have this whole thing about deliberate and accidental don't we you know if somebody steps on our foot accidentally was all right but if they deliberately step on our foot that's very different so we make this differentiation and yet so what I'm saying is that when somebody is doing or saying something or has in the past done or said something that we feel wounded by a major part of our resentment is built on a feeling that they meant it it was deliberate they planned it and I think when you're a practitioner of mindfulness and meditation you become more honest about your own weakness because you see the instability of your own mind the most interesting thing is when you sit down to do mindfulness practice and you're told to be in the present moment maybe you're told to observe your breathing or whatever technique and then we find the mind just goes here it goes there it's very difficult so we see the earthly instability of our mind or we see how our reactivity is so out of control it just comes up we don't ask for it when we get stressed when we get upset when we get anxious we don't sit around thinking shall I get anxious now if I get stressed I think I'll try bit of depression it helped we don't think like that it just it just comes and how often do we find ourselves in a situation where we do something or say something and then afterwards we think why did I say that why did I do that doesn't match so that that's not the talk of somebody who's in their right mind or somebody who's sort of in control of their mind it shows that we have this deep level of reactivity that's very wild and when our emotional pain takes over we just we just react from it it's a bit like vomiting you can't stop yourself vomiting once it's once it's happening and we do and say things just because our emotion takes over so as a mindfulness and meditation practitioner we start to see that about ourself and this helps us to then understand that others are also coming from that place so this takes away the whole idea of he meant it he deliberately said that he deliberately did that she she deliberately she was out to get me we always think people are out to get us they're out to get me but if we understand that it's coming from fusion it's coming from emotional pain what we're trying to do here is look at the suffering underneath what's going on and this helps us to soften that hard edge of resentment that really cuts into our heart you know how it feels that sharpness it softens when we think oh really they couldn't help themselves they didn't really mean it may be it's quite a radical thing to say but nobody really means it even the person who does things and seem so calculating about it really planning it and sort of you know cold and calculating still they are acting from a place of confusion and we know this because we know we do it too so I think that the starting point for forgiveness is to look at how we we also make mistakes we also lose control and then we can understand that that's how the others are as well and this kind of softens softens up a situation so we're talking about the intelligence approach which means through thinking thinking differently about the situation thinking I'm grateful there's a chance there's an opportunity here this is you know how you know I need I always think that meditations like it's excess it's exercise for the mind isn't it so you know how when you go to the gym you lift weights you want to put more weights on your weightlifting machine to get a bigger stretch so in the same way with meditation you could say the obstacles and difficulties of life are like loading more weights onto the machines so you get more more mindfulness a deeper mindfulness the deeper the problem and this is this is something that everybody involved in meditation mindfulness religion on religion whatever everybody we have to be careful that we don't fall into a trap of just looking for a good time you're thinking that I'm doing my practice so that I can just feel great I'm trying to feel a kind of it disconnected bliss if we're looking for that then of course life's problems become a real intrusion into that and the mindfulness practitioner becomes actually quite scared of life but if you are practicing mindfulness or meditation with a feeling that you want the the obstacles of life the difficulties of life are a bit like compost what's compost made from it's made from all the really disgusting stuff that you normally throw away but if you put it on your field it helps the field to grow so the difficulties of life are like compost in the field of awakening so that brings a feeling of gratitude that could feel bring a feeling of being grateful for everything being grateful to everybody so that was the first thing I mentioned the second thing I mentioned was our lack of forgiveness comes because we've judged and we assume and we make a decision that this person meant to harm me therefore I can't forgive them so we need to kind of soften that down by understanding the suffering the deep inherent suffering that is there in people's minds that make them do what they do so I think those are a few little points that we can use on this little intelligent side then the wisdom side the wisdom side is more through the direct training in meditation and this is about learning how to have a different relationship different kind of relationship with our thoughts and emotions so I think it's true to say that we all have a kind of war going on in our head or mind or whatever you want to call it that war is how we when there are thoughts on them or emotions we we either try to suppress them push them away or we really get into them and we sort of develop them we don't learn maybe how does to leave them alone and let them breathe let them just be and I think meditation is all about that it's all about learning to just leave the mind alone maybe this could be referred to you could describe this as a training in unconditional love maybe that's an interesting way to describe meditation because what do we mean by unconditional love we let's think of it in terms of people when you have unconditional love if you just love somebody the way they are you don't want to change them you don't need to change them just the way they are as soon as you try and change them you've stopped loving them and that as we know is the downfall in every relationship so transpose that to how we deal with our mind how are we towards our emotions how are we towards our thoughts are we attacking our thoughts are we attacking our emotions what would it mean to have unconditional love towards our thoughts and emotions it would mean just to leave them alone just let them be and this is the challenge of every meditator because so many meditators fall into the trap of sitting there and trying to kind of get rid of their thoughts they want to go blank they think they have to clear their mind or empty their mind a lot of people meditate like that thinking I have to clear or empty or and of course it's impossible because the more you try and push your thoughts away the worse they get and also if if that really is what meditation is about there are easier ways to achieve it you just have to knock your head against the wall until you're unconscious we'll take an anaesthetic an anesthesia could become a path to enlightenment if if that's what it is about just blank but of course it isn't we know that meditation is about it's not about blanking or removing or so the killing the thoughts or killing the emotions it's about director developing a different way of relating to them so maybe we're watching our breathing that's a technique many people do we're observing our breathing and then of course the mind wanders and then we we at some point could take a while but at some point we notice our mind has wandered then what do we do that moment of noticing that the mind has wondered that moment is a crucial moment in the meditation how we deal with that moment because many people see that moment as a moment of failure you know what I mean you're sitting there nicely doing your practice and then suddenly you realize you were writing an email in your head you realize that and you feel you lost it there's a kind of tension oh I blew it so our meditation becomes a constant stringing together of those moments of tension that's not good what we want to do instead of seeing that moment as a moment of failure is see it as a moment of success because we've had a recognition that our mind has wondered it's a moment of awareness and so all we have to do is be aware our mind wandered and then come back to the present moment and whatever you're using you might be using breath sound visualization or no object whatsoever but the idea is you're coming back to the present moment so this way we are not attacking ourselves for thinking and feeling we're just letting it be and returning normally we either try and push it away or we go for a kind of ride in it don't we we jump on the thought and go for a surfing on it and that's also a kind of it's almost a kind of aggression because we're basically saying this thought is not good enough the way it is I need more of it I need two of them or three of them it's like somebody put a slice of chocolate cake in front of you and you say well actually I'd like to please or I'd like cream on top and a sparkler you know it's not okay the way it is I need more of it and that's what we're doing with our thoughts and emotions all the time is either pushing them down or sort of indulging them and going with them so instead the middle way approach is just to leave them alone just leave it alone and come back to the breath this is helping us train in a kind of unconditional acceptance and I think that is the root of forgiveness because if we can develop that attitude towards our own mind then this will naturally relate to how we feel about others what is it that stops us forgiving we're talking about how can we forgive so what is what is what is it that stops us forgiving is it's that judgment that feeling of unable to accept the situation unable to accept the person if we're training instead in acceptance if acceptance becomes our way of training then slowly that's going to come out in how we deal with others how we think about others so the forgiveness will come more naturally when we learn to you could say make friends with our own mind I always like to think that meditation is like falling in love falling in love with your own mind and for many meditators becomes it's quite a struggle many people come to classes and they say it's a real struggle I can't meditate and that's because they're trying to destroy their own mind they're trying to get rid of the thoughts they're trying to push them away because they've got some idea somewhere that meditation is like going into a trance or going blank but instead if we learn a different more creative way of relating to our thoughts and emotions through this just leaving them alone letting them be don't need to judge them just come back to the breath come to the present moment then we we could say we're really making friends so then come from that friendship from that love comes a kind of inner gentleness a feeling of sort of being comfortable in your own skin if you're comfortable in your own skin you're more comfortable about others so forgiveness can come from there so what I've tried to share with you today is some of the Buddhist teachings but of course you don't have to become a Buddhist to practice them because I always say well nobody owns the mind Buddhism doesn't own the mind meditation isn't the property of any one religion or tradition over another because meditation is about the inner journey of looking at our mind but the what I've tried to do today is share some of those teachings about forgiveness and particularly through these two methods which I think can be practiced together the method of intelligent thinking and the method of deep looking more like how we directly relate to our mind so thank you for listening you

Channel: Wisdom 2.0 with Soren Gordhamer

Views: 175,398

Keywords: Wisdom 2.0, Wisdom 2.0 Europe, Gelong Thubten, Buddhist Monk, Forgiveness

Id: kzWUiGkHCVI

Length: 22min 29sec (1349 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 30 2014