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Forgiveness

Last week I quoted a sutta because it points out how not to take 'personally'. I find it helpful to take irritable situations to examine what/who is feeling these emotions and reasons for holding onto them. It doesn't feel good yet some of the stories gets played over and over. What is going on? How to stop feeding it?

Feeling angry, hateful or even revengeful does much harm to ourselves. This isn't a powerful enough deterrent sometimes but it could be a good place to start. If looked at more closely, people who hurt others are in a lot troubles themselves whether they are conscious of this or not. Rather than one person forgiving another, when anger and hatred dissolve forgiveness happens. In such moments, we are brought together.

Wholesome qualities like patience and compassion are important. Actually I was talking to a teacher during a recent retreat regarding how I see this; when one does the right thing, it appears as compassionate etc. It's not about trying to be compassionate.