Easy to remember shortcut to this blog post/article: https://tinyurl.com/3wayforgiveness
The description for this 3/7/2022 Insight Timer Live talk (perhaps somewhat related to my previous talk The Psychology of Customer Service Apologies):
For 15 minutes or so I invite discussion on forgiveness in general; from experience; as an ideal; as consideration; phrases for three-pronged forgiveness practice: 1) forgiving another/others 2) asking for forgiveness 3) forgiving self; not condoning actions; and next level front-loading forgiveness
A variation of pre-show notes:
- religious or non-religious
- not weakness, submission, failure, loss, blame
- ideally many would like to but can’t, not sincere, not ready, exploring, etc so allow non-forgiveness
- yoga teacher of mine very wary of forgiveness
- not condoning actions
- taking self-responsibility
- lifting of burden for oneself
- Ajahn Chah boulder story
- Andrea Fella: thousands of miles apart and being angry and begrudging likely didn’t affect other person
- anger like tossing a hot coal to burn another
- not accepting anger like not accepting a gift — it goes back, or belongs to the giver
- pain in my heart and behind heart in meditation
- picking up trash
Three-way forgiveness phrase:
To those I may have caused harm knowingly or unknowingly through my thoughts, words or actions I ask you to consider forgiving me.
To those who may have caused me harm knowingly or unknowingly through their thoughts, words or actions I freely offer my forgiveness as best as I am able at this time.
And for any harm I may have caused myself knowingly or unknowingly through my thoughts, my words, my actions I offer my forgiveness; I forgive myself as best I can at this time.
- https://aligningwithearth.com examples:
- (my) next level front-loading forgiveness
Also: A Guide to Forgiveness Meditation [pdf] and Short Forgiveness Instructions [pdf]
Audio: Allowing Non-forgiveness & Considering Three-pronged Forgiveness
Or listen via Insight Timer (app or website)
The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:
allowing non-forgiveness and considering
three-pronged forgiveness and then
description i have written up for 15
minutes or so i invite discussions on
forgiveness in general forgiveness from
experience
as an ideal as consideration then i’ll
do these
three phrases for forgiveness forgiving
others
or another two asking for forgiveness
and three forgiving self maybe also get
into
this being not condoning one’s actions
or the other person’s actions or oneself
actions from oneself and then a next
level kind of front loading forgiveness
and i’ll maybe talk about that too
forgiveness can be in religious context
and it can be in a non-religious context
i’ll look at it here more in a spiritual
context
and a lot of people look at forgiveness
as i wouldn’t say a lot but some people
look at forgiveness as like a weakness a
submission
maybe there’s some perception of some
kind of failure
or something’s
blameworthy or there’s a loss involved
if i have to forgive or ask for
forgiveness you know and ideally many
people would really like to forgive but
they’re they just can’t at the moment
and either it’s not sincere
maybe they’re not ready maybe they’re
exploring how to do it etc if any of
these are the case
what about allowing non-forgiveness if
you’re ready in a state where you can’t
forgive somebody you can’t ask for
forgiveness can’t forgive yourself why
not just allow what’s already there
anyway which is non-forgiveness allow
yourself not to forgive i mean there’s
been people
who have gone through so much pain
torment trauma that it’s totally okay
not to forgive in in those instances
right there’s no value judgment for that
and it’s kind of like a a release a
burden off one’s shoulders especially if
someone’s thinking oh i should forgive
this person oh i should ask for
forgiveness but i you know i i just
can’t i don’t i really should i’m a bad
person for not forgiving if in a
situation like that i feel that’s not
really a helpful place either can allow
non-forgiveness not forgiving with the
intent to someday possibly forgive but
being honest with ourselves right so i
had a yoga teacher once a really
respectable gal it just seemed like she
was wary of forgiving it kind of set up
a flag for me
not in any way but i sometimes we look
up to people and then
things might kind of be
off from what we thought and i know for
me in my own practice
when i first started meditation practice
a lot of stuff was coming up from the
past stuff that i had forgotten about
stuff i kind of filed away yeah all
these things i forgot that i had done to
myself things i had said to myself
things i’ve done to others things i’ve
said to others and so my heart there was
like this pain in my um heart region and
then on the back part of my heart too
and then when i came across these
teachings of forgiveness you know it was
like such a relief for me it was almost
went to the extreme though where it was
like all these people in my past i i was
like i was going and finding them and
seeking them back out to say i’m sorry
about such and such and you know i guess
there’s a time and place for that you
have to really use your discernment i
think i went a little bit overboard
there with that but it was like this
huge relief when i asked someone for
forgiveness or forgave them and you know
it’s about self-responsibility too it
can be even though if we were hurt or
wronged there’s a
you know what are we going to do about
it well we take self-responsibility do
we
allow ourselves not to forgive well
that’s part of self-responsibility i
would think too
also when we’re ready to forgive there’s
a
self-responsibility there you know this
doesn’t mean not condoning actions all
right when actual harm is done it by
forgiving someone or asking for
forgiveness it’s not saying what was
done or said was in any way
right or should have happened right
that’s not what we mean by forgiveness
very important point because a lot of
times they get conflated confused that
okay well this person really did some
harm okay so why should i forgive them i
really harm this person they’re never
going to forgive me so why should i
bother this is separate from actually
approving of harming that’s not what
we’re doing here lifting of a burden for
me when i did this it was like this huge
weight off my shoulders there’s this
teacher andrea fella i think she teaches
with insight meditation center in
redwood city california sometimes and
this was years ago when she was telling
this story about how she was so angry at
a past partner and she would just sit in
meditation or be you know thousands of
miles away and then she would realize
that oh me still being angry at this
person isn’t gonna hurt them or harm
them or get back at them
it’s only harming me hurting me to to
have this begrudging anger towards them
and um there’s this i don’t know the
exact passage and you guys can look this
up in the buddhist texts where it’s like
anger is like a hot coal right where we
think we’re gonna take it and throw it
at someone a lot of times uh we get
burned with that hot hot coal there’s
another story where someone comes to the
buddha and says something like you know
just starts berating him and telling the
story very shadowly but he kind of asks
well do you ever have guests come to
your house and he says yeah he goes do
you ever you know serve them food and
you know give them gifts and he goes
yeah
well he goes well what
what would happen if the guests wouldn’t
accept the gift who would it belong to
then and he said well it belonged to me
and then the buddha said basically in
the same way your anger i don’t accept
it i do not accept your anger there’s
also one other um ah john ciao story i
really like he’s a um there’s a whole
lineage now um
in the thai forest tradition in terabyte
of buddhism
very kind of earthy character lots of
really neat sayings and teachings in
real life and he was walking along with
a group and they come across this huge
boulder and he goes hey you know is this
boulder heavy and they go well yeah it’s
a huge rocket of course it’s heavy and
he goes well not if you don’t pick it up
the other day i was picking up trash
along the
highway here or well it’s like a four
lane road and on one side is a forested
area
and then on the other side it’s a huge
retaining wall and it’s just a people
are just passing through there really no
one lives directly there so it’s either
an opportunity to for people to throw
out trash or um maybe it just collects
there from the wind and then it gets
stuck there and nobody picks it up so i
don’t know if anybody has gone and
picked up trash with lots of traffic by
but it’s energetically challenging if
you have any kind of energetic
sensitivity just think of all the people
that have driven past that and kind of
gave if they even noticed it kind of
like oh this is yucky why is there trash
there or you know just mindlessly
driving by it it’s kind of a reflection
on consciousness so i can forgive
everybody that passed by that didn’t
pick it up everybody that passed by that
gave blame and judgment to other people
that threw it down forgiving everybody
that came by
who actually threw litter on the ground
right this three-way forgiveness phrase
i’m going to copy and paste it into the
chat the self-forgiveness was like a big
game changer growing up in a christian
tradition where i wasn’t taught in the
the one i grew up one and that i could
forgive myself too and it was like
wow that’s possible that’s a thing i’ve
lived this long and didn’t know that
it’s just unbelievable although it and
some would say it’s uh repenting which
is i guess similar but to those i may
have caused harm
knowingly or unknowingly through my
thoughts words or actions i ask you to
consider forgiving me to those who
have
the second one to those who that may
have caused me harm knowingly or
unknowingly
through their thoughts words or actions
i freely offer my forgiveness as best as
i am able to at this time and for any
harm i may have caused myself knowingly
or unknowingly through my thoughts my
words my actions i offer my forgiveness
i forgive myself as best as i can at
this time and you know these are also
can be considerations right if we’re not
able to do anything or even want to do
these can still possibly consider it for
future
experimentation i guess to go a little
bit into the woo stuff here there’s this
site i visit sometimes and it’s linked
on my website on
resources for
higher level information and discernment
align with earth she claims that
a lot of things
when you talk about ascension some
people talk about ascension that
a lot of it really isn’t even possible
without forgiveness and i’m not really
doing it justice and service by by that
little
uh short phrase there because it’s way
more in-depth and goes into different
strands of dna and whatnot but i’ll just
leave it at that if anybody’s interested
they can check that out aligning with
earth my bad aligning with earth.com so
and then this finally this this next
level forgiveness thing that i like to
do now is i front load forgiveness so to
any and everybody that i will ever
encounter or meet it’s just kind of like
this broad swath that you’re already
forgiven for anything you could possibly
ever do beforehand right so you’re off
the hook that way but that does not
condone your action doesn’t mean that
you that i approve of any kind of harm
you do even on the most subtlest levels
and the same way with anybody in my past
in current relationships leading with
kind of an assumption
that whatever you’re already forgiven so
i know this is like this sounds almost
crazy to a lot of people and i get that
but there it is you know all right well
thank you all for joining um may you all
have
and be blessed with and welcome in and
allow the greatest
ideal
and optimal
energy and consciousness for the rest of
your day afternoon and night
Integrating Presence 
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