Sit,Walk,Work (SW^2)
The Three Directions of Forgiveness
You know, ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please? Hi, welcome to the Sit Walk Work Podcast, a show about paying attention. My name is Dominic, your host. In today's episode, we're going to be covering a topic that is often not taught really, right? We don't learn how to forgive, at least I didn't, I mean, most scenarios I've just learned from were like, hold a grudge and that'll be it. But what they don't teach us you about forgiveness is that if you continue to kind of hold on to that baggage, you're allowing the past to dictate your future. And so being able to let go of that is more about impacting your future than it is about changing anything that happened before. And so I focused today's practice on something I learned from Jack Hornfield called the three directions of forgiveness in which we look at three areas to focus our attention on asking forgiveness from. So first area is like asking for forgiveness from people we might have harmed, someone we might have upset or basically created an injustice around. For forgiveness for ourselves, right, in ways that we've shamed ourselves or belittled ourselves or treated ourselves less than ideal. And then thirdly is allowing forgiving forgiveness to someone or something that has harmed us. And that third one is a big bucket. So really the focus is to do that in the way that is most true to you at this time. I'm not asking for you to dredge up your deepest wounds, but at some point you've got to learn how to interact with these energies so that you can begin to have influence over them and they not just have influence over you and dictate, guide you. And in your ability to free up space by learning to let go of these very minor slights in your life, you can begin to have more freedom and openness in your heart and in your mind. Seated or lying down, we will go ahead and begin. One of the first things I'd like you to consider as you start out practice today is just kind of take a moment and observe how you're feeling in your body in the position that you've set yourself up for practice. And if you need to make any adjustments to make yourself a bit more comfortable, just take a moment to do that. The goal is to try and steady the body so that you can kind of work with the movement of the mind and you have a clear space to work with. You want to be able to take a nice full breath in and out and make sure you have the ability to do that. Let your hands rest somewhere where they're going to be comfortable and steady for the next 30-ish minutes that we have together, and then if it feels inviting, you can close the eyes, feel safe and comfortable to do that. If you don't want the eyes closed, just kind of rest your gaze slightly out in front of you on a non-moving object. Setting a good foundation is always key to any success that we have. And so even in your sitting practice, giving yourself a good foundation is kind of one of the first parts of your practice. This initial beginning to take a physical seat is also mirrored in taking a mental seat, being a seat mentally to observe what's going on in your body and in your breath and in your mind in what we call the changing nature of things. There's this constant movement happening and our attention is pulled in various directions and you'll see that kind of a rise in practice and that's kind of the meat of what you'll be working with today. Meeting that change with curiosity, a little bit of grace, and with the desire to kind of learn and understand. Letting your attention start to expand into the body and I want you to feel in your body where it's connected, connected to the surface that's supporting it, where you can kind of feel the weight in your arms and in your legs. If you're lying down, that's the surface behind you that's supporting you or beneath you supporting you. If you're sitting upright, you might feel a lot of this support and this weight in your feet and in your sets balance. Thank you. Even as you're letting your attention kind of scan for and connect with these very tactile sensations in your body, know that there's also subtler sensations right? Like you feel your breath moving through you. You might feel the ambient temperature on your skin. You might feel tingling a pulsing like a sense of aliveness that's moving through you. and you might feel the warmth of your body. Thank you. And as your mind gets kind of pulled. From focusing here on the bodily sensations, maybe you get lost in the thoughts, stream of thoughts coming and going. If you recognize that's happening and you feel yourself pulled away at any point from what you're focusing on, simply allow your attention to redirect. To feeling what's going on in your body right now. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] One of the things that sitting in practice like this can begin to teach you is kind of this undercurrent of change that's taking place. That even as you notice the sensations in your body, they're there until they're not and a new sensation arises and there's this cycle of letting go and beginning again. That same cycle is found in paying attention and then being distracted. That you get to control how you meet those changes. If you can be a little softer, a little kind, or a little more patient. [BLANK_AUDIO] Letting your attention start to expand now. In addition to the sensations that you've been focusing on, begin to let some of your attention start to notice your breath and your breathing pattern. We necessarily have to do anything special here to affect the breath but simply allow yourself to feel the breath from start to finish where it enters the body to the air moving into your lungs, to your diaphragm moving, to you feeling the expansion or the expansive nature of your breath. That process kind of naturally unwinding, contracting back in, letting the breath out. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] And as you're paying attention to the changing nature of things arising in each moment, whether that's your breath or whether that's your body. Those labels start to fall back and you just kind of feel what's happening. There's movement happening. Whether that's the breath moving the body or the body moving the breath. That these boundaries begin to dissolve a little bit. And you can consider them all just sensations of the moment. And it's these sensations working together to create the sense of feeling supported and grounded. That even the mist of the flowing sensation. There's stability here that there's a foundation in which the change rests upon. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] One of the things that our practice helps us to understand is there. There has to be a sense of willing to let things pass through you. As you've seen in your breath, as you felt in your body. To try to grasp or hold on to anything too tightly in any given moment only starts to bring about discomfort. And that is true in how we hold on to mental things as well. So for this part of practice, I ask you to consider a contemplation of ways in which you may have caused discomfort or hurt or disappointment to others in our lives. And in opening ourselves to this, we open ourselves to the opportunity to ask for their forgiveness in the process to allow those moments to be let go instead of held or bound to us. And then it doesn't have to be a major event, right? Like we learn here by starting off small. And noticing what it feels like to consider asking for forgiveness in a situation where we may have caused discomfort or harm in some way. Feel what that feels like to the body and observe it as movement in the breath. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Coming back to your breath or the place of stability as needed, working through this first initial contemplation. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Much in the way that we look at our sensations and our body and our breath as being an overlap of similar energies. So true does it work that way in the idea of forgiving and inviting that concept in initially towards people we may have harmed in some way. And then we have to turn that lens towards ourselves. So consider now ways in which you may be disappointed yourself or let yourself down or overly critique something about yourself. So it's like if you offer a bit of that, the window of forgiveness to yourself. And with something small and letting yourself explore that in the way of the body and the breath and the moment. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] And even as you work through this practice, remember the sense of being patient and understanding with whatever arises. We often come to our practice and think that there's a need to be perfect. But even that has a bit of grace that you can extend to. To soften that and just let yourself work with what's arising in the moment. [BLANK_AUDIO] As we begin to cast our net a little bit wider, we kind of come to this third category moving from people we've affected, the way we've affected ourselves. And then to the degree that we can support it, is there someone that we would allow ourselves to forget. Someone who may have heard us, caused us, wronged us in some way. Part of our practice is learning where the resistance lies, even if that's the thing you learned today. Feel into it, give it your attention, let your breath rest with it. Over time, this is how we begin to carry life differently. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Remembering that as you consider any of these contemplations, it's always a dance between what is happening in the mind and what are you feeling in your body in this moment. Letting your attention stay, stay with what it finds in the body. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Allowing the attention to soften from the contemplations in these three areas of forgiveness that we went through. Take a step back. Notice what feeling tone is present. Notice that there's space here, space for all of this to kind of occur and unfold. And that through your body, you have a tactile sensation to ground against. And that the space that holds all of your changing parts of your experience is consistent. And it allows for each changing moment to unfold. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] And allow your attention to find a single point to focus on. Maybe that's your breath. Maybe that's the center of your chest in your heart space. [BLANK_AUDIO] And let your attention ground physically in the body. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Each moment that passes as you hold your attention here moves you further and further away from the beginning of the practice. So it's good to notice if you're still carrying parts of that in this moment. What happens if you can let that go and be here with just your breath? [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] As we begin to close our practice today, may the merits of your work not only help to serve you, and may it help to serve all other beings. We are cultivating and learning these things in our practice so that as we move through the world, we can do so with a bit more understanding and compassion from within ourselves. Take your time in blinking your eyes open, letting your visual stimulation kind of return, settling in with any residuals of the practice. Thank you for listening to today's episode. I invite you to check out my sub stack where we are building a community of like-minded individuals to discuss all topics related to the idea of paying attention. I hope to see you there, but until then, with meta may you be well. [BLANK_AUDIO] You You