What would it be like to be happy for the difficult people in our lives? It's almost too strange to contemplate. Yet if we do contemplate it, and practice it, not only does it liberate us from feelings of anger, jealousy, and ill will. It also creates safety for those "others" to experience and express their joy - safety that might not otherwise be available.
Which still begs the question of how to do that. On today's Wake Up Call, let's look at one "how to" : forgiveness. And let's start with the question, how does forgiveness work? (And spoiler alert: it starts with forgiving ourselves.)
What would it be like to be happy for the difficult people in our lives? It's almost too strange to contemplate. Yet if we do contemplate it, and practice it, not only does it liberate us from feelings of anger, jealousy, and ill will. It also creates safety for those "others" to experience and express their joy - safety that might not otherwise be available.
Which still begs the question of how to do that. On today's Wake Up Call, let's look at one "how to" : forgiveness. And let's start with the question, how does forgiveness work? (And spoiler alert: it starts with forgiving ourselves.)
We’ve been working with sympathetic joy, or mudita in the Pali language: being happy for others, including people we love, acquaintances, and also people we don’t like, or hold a grudge against, or have hurt us. Not, those who have caused deep or sustained harm – that will be for another Call – but someone who rubs the wrong way, is a thorn in our side, that kind of thing.
After last week’s Call I heard from several of you about how strange and challenging it is to locate or cultivate happiness for the person who's a thorn in our side – who, in the classical parlance of mindfulness, is called the “enemy,” which is the word I’m going to use today. And which feels a little edgy. But to contextualize, I want to go with what Roshi Joan Halifax, founder of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, says. She says, "We are in this practice not to hide out but to work the edge of our anger and futility. Then, we can finally get to compassion - fierce, ruthless compassion." And maybe also get to fierce, sympathetic joy.
Last week I was asking, why be happy for an enemy? One reason is the old metaphor about carrying around jealousy or envy or resentment or ill will: it’s like carrying around a hot coal in your own hand, and expecting your enemy to get burned. Mudita, or sympathetic joy, is about putting that coal down. In other words, mudita liberates our own hearts.
But mindfulness is only about our own personal liberation insofar as it’s also about everyone’s liberation, and vice versa. So with sympathetic joy for the enemy, the enemy might be someone in our own family or in our in-group, but it might also be someone who falls into the “enemy” category because of how we’re socialized in our racialized, late-stage-capitalist, patriarchal, xenophobic profession and world. So we’re practicing mudita not only to liberate own hearts, but equally to remind ourselves to care about the happiness of others, including our enemies, which can help liberate our relationship with our enemies from any ill will coming from us, and thus possibly provide safety for our enemies to fully embrace their own joy and success, and not feel they need to hide it or worry that they might be shunned or even harmed for expressing or embracing it. So from my very privileged perspective, mudita sometimes looks like an offering of safety that could open up the possibility of systemic liberation. What would our profession look like, and the world look like, if everyone was free to share their success and happiness, sing it, dance it, and know that everyone else would be happy for them?
But this all begs the question of how. How to locate or cultivate true mudita, true happiness, for an enemy. I promised last week that today I’d talk a little about one of the how’s, which is forgiveness.
Forgiveness makes sense to me as one of the “hows” because it’s like opening the door to sympathetic joy. If there’s someone I consider my “enemy,” it’s because they’ve said or done something, or I’ve said or done something, or the profession or culture or systems in which we both live, or in which I live, has given us to understand that we’re enemies, or should be. Forgiveness can change that perspective.
What’s needed, though, in my experience, is a broad understanding of forgiveness. It’s not just the understanding that my enemy has said or done something that I need to forgive. It’s also, almost always, that I’ve also said or done something that needs forgiveness.
(And again, I’m talking today about the “rock in the shoe” enemy, not someone who has caused great harm, or fundamentally compromised my safety or the safety of others.)
Sometimes getting to seeing that I need forgiveness, too, is hard for me. First I have to loosen my blame. Then I have to let go of the shame that obscures my ability to see my contribution to the situation. Then I need to not judge myself. Then I can get to the part where I start with forgiving myself. Because there are three parts to a full and wide forgiveness practice, and just like with the Brahmaviharas of lovingkindness and compassion, where we start with ourselves (may I be happy, this is a difficult moment for me) and then broaden our vision/open our hearts to others and eventually to everyone, in forgiveness practice we start by forgiving ourselves.
Interestingly, the foundation for self-forgiveness is obvious, or at least it was to me when I first heard it. It’s simply to see: OH, I said or did that thing because in that moment, that’s how much wisdom and compassion I had. That was where I was at. So to be honest, things really couldn’t have been different.
I don’t know if this will come up for you, but too often what I do is superimpose what I know now, my mindfulness practice, whatever wisdom or compassion I’ve gained in the last 10 or 20 or 30 years since whatever it was, happened: that day, that moment. But that’s magical thinking, which is the opposite of mindfulness. The truth is, I had the wisdom that I had, then. I had the compassion I had, then. So things couldn’t have been other than they were, then.
AND, if the same situation were to arise now, I’d say something different or act differently. Because I have a little more wisdom and compassion now.
The next part of forgiveness practice is to ask for forgiveness. You do that by thinking about some way you messed up, hurt someone, insulted someone, perpetrated an injustice: something you’d like forgiveness for. And you start in the same place, by seeing how, with the wisdom and compassion you had at the time, things couldn’t have been different, and also how, if the same situation were to arise right now, things might be different. And then you ask for forgiveness. This can be as part of a solitary practice but also, it can be a portable practice. As in, you call up the person, or write a note, and ask for forgiveness. Say you’re sorry is wonderful and part of the process, but asking for forgiveness is the next level.
And last, you forgive someone else – the enemy, or the “other” – in the case of working with mudita, or sympathetic joy. In other words, you forgive the person you’re trying to be joyful for. And it’s the same thing: you see how, with the wisdom and compassion the person had at the time they hurt you, or chose the path they did, or with the conditioning they have, or because of the racialized, late-stage-capitalist, patriarchal, xenophobic society we live in, things could not have been different. And then you simply let go of any grudge you're holding, and forgive. And if it doesn't feel simple at all, which might also happen, and has definitely happened for me, then you shift to self-compassion, and remind yourself that forgiveness is hard work. But what a relief to put down that hot coal.
And one more thing. As a long-time meditator, and maybe you experience this, too, I tend to hold other people to a pretty high standard. I tend to expect them to be fairly awake to what’s going on, to have the ability to look at what’s happening in their own lives, without blame but with curiosity, and to understand that they’re causing harm.
And yet I think many people don’t have a practice like we do, and maybe aren’t doing that yet. Last night I was talking with Alisa Gray, one of my best friends and a co-teacher in our teacher training, and a beautiful yoga and meditation teacher (and also killer probate litigator) in Arizona. Alisa was telling a story, sort of about one of her cases but really about an opposing counsel who’s an old friend, and is starting to feel like an enemy. And she said, "Well, she doesn’t have a practice." Meaning a contemplative practice that would enable her – this opposing counsel cum friend cum enemy – to see that in this situation, she’s causing a lot of harm. A lot of unnecessary harm. And then Alisa saw that her frienemy didn't have the tools, and she let go of whatever coal that was.
So can we forgive people for not being awake? With all the humility that we each have, of knowing we’re also just doing our best, can we forgive our enemies and frienemies for not being aware or awake to the harm they’re causing? Without allowing them to cause us harm, or to cause our clients harm; without abandoning our obligations to be passionate advocates; without abandoning our post as it were, can we forgive others for not being able to see, yet? I think that’s what Jesus said, isn’t it? Forgive them for they know not what they do?