Find it hard to forgive?
 

How do you forgive, deep inside?

I can pretend like I do, but deep down inside me I am still mad at some people for certain things, hurting me, or people close to me.

I would say by not taking offence in the first place, therefore forgiveness becomes redundant.

How do we forgive if an offence has been registered? No idea, sorry, that just seems to invite moral concepts of a "loving self" that we wish to be but are not.

Yet we CAN seek to act towards those who have wronged us as if we have forgiven them. But beware of the Pharisee!

"Mutual forgiveness of each vice opens the gates of paradise" ( William Blake )

Maybe by understanding and loosening the knots of what holds or binds a me or a self together, you will see that they also are caught in there own particular rut that made them react or act the way they did....analysing and contemplating how hurt and pain is generated will make it easier to start to let things go, then you might see you won't have to forgive.....Buddhism has broken down how the self is generated in the Skhandas if I remember...or do I?

Some people project hurtful things. It's like a guard dog will always try to bite you if you get close. I would not say I am mad at certain people, but they affect me in negative ways so I avoid them or stay away from them. If someone likes to harm you or doesn't treat you with respect or dignity etc there is no reason to like such a person or want them in your life. Loving others is a good idea but you also have to love yourself and not let those who seek to harm you do so.

It gets harder when we are related to people or work with people who are toxic or have to spend time in environments where hurtful people are because you can't always avoid such people then. So then you have to find ways to interact with them where they cannot harm you. Maybe limit how much you talk to them or talk to them in a very superficial manner.

A lot of bad things (if not all?) that happen to us is due to karma. Perhaps we needed abusive people in our lives to learn certain things or because of karma.

Sometimes being mad at someone is just knowing who they are to you. A lioness is wonderful to her cubs, but then will kill a zebra's baby without a pause. It's good to know the nature of another and how they treat or act towards you. Mad can also mean you have anger you are holding onto towards them but holding onto whatever happened in the past lets them hurt us more in the present. In Zen, one tries to not let the past affect us in the present by not focusing on thoughts of the past.

In Christianity and Buddhism is the idea we don't have to punish anybody for their actions, Karma or Judgment Day takes care of that. People will always get back what they give out. As Paul McCartney said, the love we take is equal to the love we make.

In my experience, it needs to be processed. This is not a process of denial, or acting out anything. It is allowing the space and freedom and gentleness to hold yourself, to feel your feelings, hear your thoughts, and thereby, through this process of gently watching, and abiding by what is, to heal through a process of genuine karmic transformation.

This is why meditation is a very important part of the Eightfold Path (Right Concentration), it allows a strong basis by which to know how to heal thyself. Physician, heal thyself first. Buddhist practices are very much cathartic, and as one progresses, can transcend the world, but still be of this world. In that regard, it can be useful.

Pema Chodron has some good books on these topics (of hurt) underpinned by a real practice, and she has a good (relatable) writing style.

If you keep forgiving, even if you don't mean it, eventually you will believe it and come to mean it. It's like retraining your mind, which you can do as long as you have the actual desire to forgive, even if you struggle to do it.

I have struggled mightily with this for decades...but with only one person ...my father
many times I have felt that it was truly behind me...that I forgave him..but sometimes a story would come up with my brothers and bam...right back in it.
So I guess I'm in a partial forgiveness if there is such a thing...I think intellectually I have forgiven him....but at times I still struggle with him in an emotional way...not always ...but when I do it is very disrupting.

I have done the keep forgiving thing...over and over...I know full well that I'M the only one affected by holding on to this....but it can still kick me in the nads.
I do think that I hold on to this also, because of how he was to my mother ..I get mad when I think of all the grief he caused her...and I was too young to kick his a** ....and THAT bothers me...it bothers me because I'm not totally over this...and because I had thoughts of striking him (can't win on that one)
Emotions can get the best of us...most times I am the master of my emotions..but when I am not.... they master me for a time

Love
acorn

It is a process that moves as you move through the process of life. If you look at it more deeply and directly you might find the attachment is related to something else. Most often it is something set up early in your life that hasn't been able to let go and so holds on to the emotional reaction in current events that mimic that time in you. If your sensitive to hurt it can take time to heal the wounds of others coming in at you. When your whole self is more clear and free flowing, time and awareness builds a clearer state of being, so your more aware of others as they are more directly and less inclined to take on the pain that you learn to know is theirs. You are able to separate your feelings from behaviours and so take more responsibility for your part in this way. Once fully released it should no longer hold you tied to it. Clarity opens wisdom and compassion for your hurt, which naturally moves outwardly in awareness towards others.

We are a already set up early in life in reaction and repressed emotions, undoing hurt can be a multi layered connection..it can relate to pacts in early life, judgement towards certain inflictions, unresolved anger unrelated to the current incident but activated by it. Many things can come into the picture of attachments.

"Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do"-within this statement is your answer.

Because of the way we are wired, we are always looking back as if the past could be other than it actually was, and from this perception we believe that someone could have acted differently or made a different choice, this is a fallacy and illusion.

Everyone, is doing exactly what they believe they need to do, and most of what we do are habitual, unconscious reactions to external stimuli, in other words we act/react out of old thought patterns/systems from a sense of identity that at its root is primal, fearful and protective (survival instinct) which is reflected in our words and actions. This is why we say and do things that, at times, we later can't even explain why we did them or where these unconscious words/actions even came from. We come to see that these people who do hurtful things are revealing/expressing their own unconscious and unresolved inner pain/hurt/conflicts/ignorance and often it is expressed upon those undeserving of it. I like to say people don't "really" do things to you, they do it for themselves, that we are at times helpless victims of others unconscious expressions. What these people need is help not more harm, love not more hate, compassion not vengeance, as to restore balance we must apply the opposite, if we apply more hate to balance hate all we end up with is more hatred.

One who observes these tendencies within them self, and then observes these tendencies in others, then after seeing that they are unconscious reactions based in ignorance, then sees that it not only doesn't need to forgive, but that it doesn't need to condemn, as, without first condemning there is no need to forgive, and this is brought about through the process of understanding the root of action, and this understanding of the root of action is revealed through self observation and enquiry. Within this seeing is the jump from a bases of judgment to a solid foundation of compassion.

This is summed up in the statement; "They know not what they do" hence their actions are the result of unconscious, habitual thought patterns based upon a pseudo identity with fear as its foundation.

I like to say that people who do hellish crimes are not going to hell, but rather, their actions are revealing the hell they're already in, it is a psychological state, not a physical place. If one was in a loving state, then they could only reveal love, as our actions and words are a revealing of us, not those we aim them at.

Also, I forgot to mention that our diet can have detrimental effects on our behavioral attitudes, as science is beginning to see and prove with testing, a correlation of malnutrition with those who suffer from negative behavioral patterns. When these patients are given proper nutritional supplements, and a balance is restored within their biology, their negative behavioral issues are resolved. I am not saying this is the case with everyone, but we are very complex biological organisms, which is why we must treat mind, body and spirit with the love and care the whole requires, not just one or the other.

Don't let your pains become hatred.
Let your pains remain as pains and don't let your pains get rid your love.
Accept your pain and try to laugh at it