What does forgiveness mean? What happens when you forgive? When do we forgive? How can we forgive?
Forgiveness, or letting go, is a concept which I have always struggled to understand. The conversations I had with people did not give me a satisfying explanation. Recently, however, I came across an idea which altered my view of the concept.
We are often told that forgiveness means letting go of anger and resentment so that we can regain our peace. I agree that holding resentful feelings can be detrimental to our peace of mind. But I am not convinced that forgiving the perpetrator is necessarily the solution. I think there may be another way to understand the process.
When we talk about forgiveness, it usually means that an offence has been committed against us. The offence may be verbal, emotional, physical, or something else entirely. But the mere fact that an offence has been committed does not mean that forgiveness needs to be considered. The offence needs to have some kind of impact: our feelings may be hurt, our ego may be hurt, or something more fundamental may have been affected.
The “culture of positivity” demands that we forgive the perpetrator. Not necessarily because the perpetrator deserves forgiveness–he or she may or may not deserve it–but because we deserve peace from the feelings we hold against the other party.
The pathway I am suggesting may not be for everyone. It is more likely to appeal to people who tend to think through their feelings rather than experience them directly. If it does not fit your experience, that is entirely fine. It is simply a different way of looking at forgiveness.
I will begin by analysing the standard solution offered by the conventional “culture of positivity” when we have been offended. The solution is to “forgive” the perpetrator so that they no longer hold power over our emotions or thoughts. Indifference is proposed here: we are told to become indifferent towards the actions which offended us.
This is a perfectly valid solution. I am going to call it “Peace by Indifference.” We have a whole school of thought related to the concept of indifference. You may look up Stoicism if you would like to know more.
However, I think there can be an element of denial involved. This is why I find “indifferent forgiveness” shallow. We are sometimes expected to abandon feelings of hatred or anger and forgive in order to become “the bigger person” and find peace.
This becomes especially difficult when the offender has made some reparation to compensate for the offence. Our feelings may then be considered invalid because the offender has taken corrective action. If we continue to feel resentful after the offence has been compensated, we may be considered heartless, even though we were the ones who were wronged. It is not only our peers who may judge us; we may eventually begin to judge ourselves in the same way.
The underlying problem is the general consensus that it is bad to hold resentful feelings, especially when the offence has apparently been compensated. These feelings may indeed become detrimental to our peace. We need peace. Peace is essential.
But I cannot fathom the idea that peace can be gained by denying our feelings. “Peace by Indifference” does not seem to offer a permanent solution. It is a workaround. We can live with that workaround, and since we do not live eternally, perhaps it only needs to work until the moment we die.
But there is another possibility. It may be okay to feel hatred, anger, or similar emotions as long as we do not desire to act on them. Just because we hate someone or are angry with someone does not necessarily make us bad people. We need to make sure that the feeling does not control or consume us. We do not necessarily need to “let go” of a feeling simply because someone else considers it negative.
If we can accept our resentful feelings without desiring to act on them, we have completed one of the two important steps. Reaching this stage alone may grant us the peace we need. The popular suggestion “Forgive, Don’t Forget” may be appropriate for describing this state of mind.
This does not mean that we have no feelings about the offence. It means that we no longer desire to act on those feelings, while still remembering what happened and using that knowledge to decide on our future actions. I am going to call this “Peace by Acceptance.”
“Peace by Acceptance” is a more permanent solution than the workaround of “Peace by Indifference.” However, if you are like me, it may not provide complete satisfaction. You have let go of the desire to act on your feelings, but not of the underlying feelings themselves.
Once we have eliminated the will to act on our feelings, we reach a position where we can examine them. This requires a considerable level of mental fortitude, so we need to be careful when attempting it. We are essentially engaging in introspection.
We can ask ourselves questions such as: What specific action triggered this feeling in me? Why did that action trigger me? Why did I care about that incident? Why did I feel one particular emotion instead of another? There may be many other questions as well.
This does not mean that we need to spend every waking second pondering these questions. It simply means that some questions remain unanswered.
We may need to dig into our experiences, memories, and consciousness to find the answers. We may need to dissect them into pieces, twisting and turning them like puzzle pieces among countless random fragments. If we choose this path, we need to accept that the answers may take a long time to reveal themselves, if they are ever revealed at all. The possibility that an answer exists, however, remains.
How will we know when we have found what we were seeking? The exact question will vary from person to person, but I think it may be something like this: What do I care about in my life that caused this event to elicit this particular feeling in me?
There are different possibilities regarding the answer.
Perhaps the offence does not really matter to us, and the feeling was merely superficial. In that case, we may become indifferent to the offence. We may wonder how this is different from “Peace by Indifference.” There is a major difference: this time, we understand why we had the feeling and why we can be indifferent to its cause. Our indifference is not imposed on us; it emerges from understanding.
Another possibility is that the feeling was not superficial. Something important mattered to us, but we were not consciously aware of it. Once we recognise what that is, the discovery can feel like an enlightening revelation–perhaps similar to the revelation Gautama received while sitting under the Bodhi tree. We gain information about ourselves which was previously hidden. It is like taking a piece from our shadow and integrating it into our conscious self.
Once we reach this point, we can let go of our feelings–not because what caused them did not matter, and not because we no longer need to do anything about it, but because those feelings have taught us everything they have to offer. There is nothing left for them to reveal.
I would call this “Peace by Understanding.”
Here, forgiveness is a final destination. We do not enforce forgiveness in order to find peace. We find peace along the way, through acceptance and understanding.
Thus, we may finally and truly “let go.”