Forgiveness – Stuckness

Our suffering comes from clinging to habitual thoughts and feelings, concepts that we believe will bring us happiness and relief from suffering, but rarely do. Letting go of our attachments to these unskillful ways of seeing the world will open our awareness to our true nature and to the true nature of all beings. Then we see and respond to our experiences of the world with more love, kindness and compassion.

Here is a short paragraph on Letting Go of Hurt from Doug Kraft, where Doug related a story about how someone’s comments left him with obsessively negative thoughts:

My obsessive thinking is a story about getting stuck and how seeing deeply can get us unstuck and reconnected with joy. It’s a story about awareness. And it’s also a story about patience – how helpful it is to relax with difficulty and just be with things as they are with a gentle heart. Awareness and patience.

The story didn’t use the word “forgiveness.” But awareness and patience are essential to the process of forgiveness, whether we use the word or not. So let’s look at what these words can tell us about forgiveness.

Anytime forgiveness is an issue, something painful has happened. Sometimes we blame a person for the hurt we feel. Sometimes we blame ourselves for a hurt they feel. We get stuck in blame or guilt.

Forgiveness helps get us unstuck. When awareness goes deep enough to see the source of hurt, it releases. Conversely, lack of forgiveness is a blindness that makes it difficult to see and release a hurt.

This makes it sound simple: “Just let it go.” But we don’t always want to let it go. The old quip says, “Don’t get mad. Get even.” Sometimes we want to hold onto an offense until we can get back at the person. This type of thinking keeps us blind to the real source of our pain and suffering. Turning toward the hurt, relaxing into it, and letting go is the way to release and let go of the ‘stuckness.”

And even if we genuinely want to let go, sometimes it can be mysteriously difficult. We just need to return to our practice of forgiveness in each moment of feeling hurt.