“Who Says You Can’t Teach an Old Dog a New Trick or Two”

The other day I realized that I was struggling with an internal dilemma that I have struggled with for years. Sure I have all the intellectual answers, religious beliefs from ALL the religions and yes I have heard the words – I SHOULD – but finally I had to face the ultimate truth and accept that no matter what I’ve tried I just wasn’t getting it and to be completely honest it was killing me.

So what is this internal dilemma – FORGIVENESS!

So I went out looking for help and as always I let my higher power guide me to what I needed and on this day I was guided to the book “Finding Forgiveness – A Seven Step Program for Letting Go of Anger and Bitterness.”

Forgiveness doesn’t come because someone has asked for it or has earned it.

Forgiveness is a gift given to those who choose to forgive because they don’t want the cancer of hatred to spread within them and eat them up.

The purpose of forgiveness is to empower you above and beyond those who have made you their victim.

Forgiveness is not pardoning. Forgiveness is an inner emotional release. Pardoning is a public behavioural release. To forgive a wrongdoer does not mean that we abolish the punishment for what was done. (NOT CORPORAL PUNISHMENT)

Forgiveness is not condoning. Forgiveness does not mean that you support behaviours that cause pain to yourself or others. We do not have to accept someone else’s behaviour in order to forgive.

Forgiveness is not reconciliation. Forgiveness is a personal, internal release that only involves oneself. We can forgive someone, but it does not mean we have to reconcile.

To free ourselves from that would be liberating and that freedom is what we call forgiveness.

Eileen R. Borris-Dunchunstang, Ed.D.

So my primary task at hand is too read this book cover to cover and applying the seven steps so that I’m equipped with the tools that I need to attain the liberation and freedom that comes through forgiveness.

In the course of our lives we often make misguided decisions that harm ourselves or others. We do this out of ignorance. We think that a certain mode of behavior will bring us happiness when in fact it brings suffering. Feelings of self-righteous anger and the urge for revenge may sometimes lead us to harm others in the mistaken conviction that it will benefit us and bring us some form of happiness. Actually, it creates suffering not only for the victims of our deeds but also for us. However justified we may feel, doing others harm, even in the name of revenge, severely disturbs our own peace of mind and creates conditions for our own suffering.

His Holiness The Dalai Lama

About five years ago I went on my first ten day silent, meditation retreat. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I did know one thing, I was scared.

I arrived about 2 hours early put my stuff in my room and waited and waited and waited.  I wanted to leave – I knew I was going to have to face the most terrifying reality I would ever come face to face with in my life – my ego!

You know for the first five days I spent more time counting how much time I had left than I did meditating. Over and over I would count the remaining days, hours and minutes. My ego fought tooth and nail not to give in. No way was it going to surrender. No way was it going to give up on all my past defects and behaviours that had served it so well. If I found peace and love it would lose all of its power – to my ego this appeared to be a matter of life or death.

For five days it came on like a hurricane and when it did, all I wanted to do was run and get the heck out of there and then suddenly out of nowhere it happened. My mind went still and I was surrounded with peace. Moments before my knees were killing me, my back was throbbing and I was starving but none of that mattered anymore. It was like I was separate from my body and all that pain and turmoil was now only an observation – no longer a reality.

I had reached a place where I could truly distinguish between my body and my soul and I realized that none of this pain required my attention any more. In fact it was as if my body and pain were merely an illusion.

When the ten days were over I was overcome with emotion, I had never felt so at peace before in my life. Tears streamed down my face, it was if a mountain had been lifted from my shoulders, I was radiating with love.

But as with everything else in life – if we don’t put in the time and the practice, we lose the skill and my monkey mind found its way home.  So I had to go back for ten more days and you know what? It was just as hard the second time.

Moral of the story – I know that I am a spiritual being in a human form – I have lived it, I have been there and I know it to be my truth. I also know that the ego never dies while we are in human form, so we must be aware at all times of its devious ways and while acknowledgement is unavoidable, feeding it - is a choice.