Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Forgiveness in three directions — toward oneself, toward those we have hurt, and toward those who have hurt us — is the core of this 20-minute guided session with Ven Jampa Gendun at the 2008 Christmas Retreat. He begins by setting the tone: stay relaxed and accepting, don’t look for catharsis or any particular experience, and let the process unfold without struggle. A brief breath-settling exercise grounds the group before he divides the remaining time into three parts, one for each strand of forgiveness. Participants are invited to recall a specific incident or simply sit with the phrases — “I forgive me,” “forgive me,” “I forgive you” — noticing whatever images, moods, or bodily sensations arise without forcing them. The session closes with a short aspiration for the well-being of oneself and all sentient beings. Accessible to practitioners at any level.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 CR.mp3
UUID: f4d4d974-55d7-4370-9f54-254ada154229
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Christmas Retreat (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2008 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 19.7 minutes
Words: ~1,005
Phrase, I forgive me or I forgive you, I forgive you, perhaps some images might arise, some feelings, just maybe a mood. You’ll begin to become aware sensation of the body. So when you notice something begin to arise, then focus your attention on that while being present to repeating the phrase. The process will take care of itself. You don’t have to figure it out.
But also, you know, it’s important that you be accepting and relaxed throughout the process. You know, not looking for some specific state of mind or some bizarre experience of some sort, some kind of catharsis. Know, just putting more pressure on yourself. We don’t need that, the struggle that we’re normally involved in. So don’t struggle for anything special to happen.
Be patient and relaxed and being present. That’s all. Just allow the process to take care of itself. And there are three types of forgiveness. The first is directed toward ourselves.
So you can either just think of a specific instant, or you can just be a general awareness, and repeating the phrase as a total, or, you know, there are many ways I’ve hurt myself. I’ve hurt and harmed myself. I have betrayed and abandoned myself, let myself down. You know, perhaps is very wordy, but we might want to read it through one time and just to get the sense and the feeling. And then coming to the final words, I forgive myself.
I forgive myself. I forgive me. And just being present to what that means for you, seeing how it resonates and becoming aware of any images or feelings or moods or sensations and focusing, paying attention without trying to force, without trying to induce some specific experience. Just aware of that sensation, focusing on that, and just inwardly repeating the phrase, I forgive me, I forgive me. And the same way with forgiveness from others.
We’ve hurt others, either intentionally or unintentionally, knowing and unknowingly and so forth. You can bring to mind a specific instance or you can simply repeat the phrase in and of itself and see what arises for you. You might be surprised of some long past suppressed memory of some incident that you’ve not recalled for one reason or another. It may come to mind and focus upon that. Or it may just be a mood or maybe a sensation of the body.
And being present, forgive me. I ask for your forgiveness. Forgive me. In the same way with the harms done to ourselves by others. You can you can remember a specific incident or simply re re re repeat the phrase in whole without any specific incident in mind and see what comes up.
I forgive you. Maybe nothing will come up. That’s that’s also okay. Okay? So I’m sorry we we kind of rushed for time.
It’s I didn’t leave enough time. I I I talked too much. So Would you like to stand up for one minute and then we’ll sit and we’ll practice? Okay. Shall we try it?
Shall we give it a go? So take a comfortable firm posture. You like to sit on the floor or sit on your chair, whichever works best for you. So if we have about fifteen minutes, so I won’t allow you to be late. You have busy lives.
You’ve got places to go. So but I’ll take care of the time. You just take care of your meditation. Okay, so we’ll begin with a simple breath exercise. Just breathing in comfortably normally, but when you breathe out, extending the exhalation completely emptying the lungs, gently forcing all the air out of the lungs.
Very gently. Breathing in comfortably normally, but again extending exhalation. And then bring your mind to the breath. Just the easy, gentle, in and out flow of the natural breath, wherever the sensation associated with the breath is most clear and obvious to yourself. Focus your attention on the sensation of the breath.
So this practice of forgiveness is going to be done individually. So you might want to have the sheet that we’re making use of, or you might want to use your own words. And we’re simply going to divide the period of time that we have left into three parts. And the first part is in terms of forgiveness for oneself. You can bring to mind a specific instance, or just you can simply forgive yourself in general.
But watching for any kinds of images or feelings or an overall mood or sensation. And while you repeat the words inwardly to yourself, focus upon that image, forgiving yourself. Yourself. Stay present feelings, but also the sense of forgiveness. They’re both important.
Remember to forgive yourself. Stay present. Stay aware. So if you wish, you can continue with this particular part of the forgiveness meditation. Otherwise, we can begin to ask forgiveness from others, for the mistakes, for the harm, the hurt that we’ve caused others.
So whatever works best for you. If you’re asking forgiveness from another, imagine that if they understood, if they were present here, that they would forgive you. It’s okay. Just let go And you can continue with that or if you’d like to move on to the third part where you forgive another for the hurt or harm you feel they’ve caused you. We have a lot of forgiving to do.
And as a way of concluding the practice, just generating a general wish, may myself all sentient beings be well and happy. May myself and all sentient beings be well and be happy. And then bring your mind back to the breath. Get in touch with your body, perhaps the some feeling sensation within the body, your buttocks on the cushion, on the chair. Become aware of the sounds about you in the room, outside the room.
And slowly become aware of your place in the room and things about you. Do have anything you’d like to say?