Forgiveness and Joy

In The Book of Joy, a book documenting a week-long conversation between the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu about joy, the two spiritual leaders identified forgiveness was one of the pillars to cultivating joy. 

I come from a family that does not model forgiveness well. We cared for one another fiercely. When someone hurt one of us, we held that person apart, sometimes indefinitely. "It's a Greek thing," one of my cousins said once when we were discussing this. "We just don't know how to let things go. And, we have long memories." 

"Maybe it's because we're related to those ancient, angry, vengeful gods," I joked. "Or at least because our ancestors believed in them." 

It was funny at the time, and there was some context--we were talking about a particular decades-long, unnamed but continually honored, rift between two families. But it was also true--I couldn't remember a time when I saw someone forgive. 

And, when it comes to historical wounds, we really can't let go. That's why one of my Sunday School teachers showed us a map of the world and said that everyone was beloved by God--except the Turks. 

In my spiritual journey, I have at times practiced a version of Tonglen. A simplified explanation of Tonglen begins by holding people in your heart and wishing them and end to suffering, and an embodied love. (It's more complicated than that in its traditional form, but my Christian brain finds a practice of imagining their beings flooded with light and love and courage to do good easier than using the Buddhist language). You move from yourself, to a person you care deeply about, then to a person you have seen but barely know (the check out person at the grocery is usually the example used, though that doesn't work if you live in a town as small as mine!), and then, finally, to someone you consider to be your enemy. 

I can get through most of this just fine, until I get to the enemy--and unfortunately, yes, there are people in that category in my personal life. There are also enemies I don't know personally, like the Trump supporter who burned our Black Lives Matter sign. And, there are the political enemies who have the collective power to do real harm to our earth and its people. I don't know how to hold my enemies in the light. And, I don't know how to let go of the deep pain they caused me. 

It is hard, too, when living with so many people in so much deep pain as I've chosen to do, to let go of the small, daily ways that I get hurt. Sometimes I literally can't go on with what I must do (wash the dishes, get someone to where they need to be, clean up something that was broken, try to go to sleep) without either freezing in exhaustion or moving through it quickly, embodying my resentment and anger. My beloveds are not my enemies, but I am just as prone to carry the things they have said and done around with me.

I know it's true, though, that if I'm walking through the world angry and resentful, I don't see have those moments of transcendence that lead to joy. If I'm walking the dogs, mulling over the thing my daughter said to me that hurt so deeply or the horrific, new thing Trump said today, I won't notice that one of my neighbors is hanging lights while humming "O Holy Night," or that a stray cat is rubbing against my ankles, or that the moon is low and exuberant and calling for my reverence. Or, rather, I'll notice these things, but they won't register on the heart and soul level that they might if I were attentive, if my heart were open.

There has been plenty to be angry about over the last four years. For the first time, I've felt a deep hatred for people I don't even know, people wearing a certain hat and who fly a certain flag or have a certain sign in their yard. And, for good reason: Trump and his followers really have caused irreparable damage to so many people. There are some people in my personal life, too, who are unlikely to ever be able to truly seek my forgiveness, who have hurt me and other I live deeply.

The Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu drew a distinction between forgiving the person and letting the behavior go. They truly believed it was possible to resist injustice--and to feel our own deep pain-- while not feeling hatred toward the person--and, yes, while forgiving them.

Recently I posted a lament on Facebook. It was late at night and somewhat out of character. It drew a parallel between Trump and an individual who has caused me great harm. In the lament, I wrote that there were the only two people I had ever failed to hold in the light--but I realize now that this is not true. There have been plenty of others, too, whom I've had difficulty holding during Tonglen, including some of my beloved family members if they've recently said or done something to hurt me.

And one of my friends commented, "You don't have to hold them in the light. Let someone else do that for now." 

I didn't really know what she meant, but a couple days later, I tried something new. During Tonglen, I imagined another person's hands--a stranger's hands--holding them instead. Intellectually, I know that people who follow Trump, and this person who hurt me, and my beloveds, and so many others, have their own deep wounds out of which they are acting--but that doesn't mean I actually feel compassion. Somehow, though, their beings floating in hands that are not mine, hands that are holding them in the light, has at least provided me some distance from my rage. I can begin to look at them with curiosity. I can begin to see the wounds they carry. I can begin to feel some measure of peace, if not actual forgiveness. 

A part of me wonders if it really matters. I mean, as long as I try to do my part to make the world a better place, who cares how I feel after a loved one has hurt me, or how I feel toward my enemies, personal and political? But I know it does. Being able to feel my heart lighten at the neighbor's humming, the stray cat rubbing against my ankle and delighting the dogs, who playfully chase her, and the rising moon--well, that is a necessary medicine that could hold me for a whole day. I want to be present enough to feel it. 

And beyond that, of course, is the fact that activism grounded in love is effective in a way that activism grounded in hatred never is--at least, not in the long term. We can only make lasting change in the world if our hearts stay open. And that is maybe the best reason to be intentional about forgiveness--because if we are forgiving, we can be more present to the world's pain and the way it will manifest toward us, and more willing to do what we can do alleviate it.