How to Practice the Forgiveness Meditation This meditation is a way to remove emotional blocks in the mind that has stopped your feeling of loving-kindness from arising. It is a pathway to accepting who we are and letting go of the unwholesome while making way for the wholesome. Step One:
Begin by Forgiving Yourself We need to first forgive ourselves before we can experience loving-kindness in our hearts and send out pure love to others. Here’s the steps you’ll use to lead your heart into unblocking the flow of love within you so you can learn how to love and accept yourself. Set your timer for thirty minutes. Enter into the quiet. To begin the forgiveness meditation, set aside at least thirty minutes. Find a comfortable sitting position and promise yourself you won’t move or change your posture during this sacred time. Close your eyes. Relax your body. Sit in the quiet. Choose a phrase. Repeat it to yourself. Begin by repeating the phrase, “I forgive myself for not understanding.” Place this sincere wish for forgiveness for yourself in your heart and stay with it. Since your mind can think only one thought at a time, by focusing on this phrase, you keep your mind light, free from distracting worries or negative emotions. Sincerely wish this forgiveness for yourself. This wish of forgiveness is your “object of meditation.” Any sort of a feeling of forgiveness can be there, but the feeling is not the object— just the wish for forgiveness. The phrase “not understanding” means that in the past you acted negatively toward yourself or someone else. Maybe you got angry or someone else caused you pain. You reacted, and then afterward, you regretted your actions. We have all acted without understanding. Acting with anger or any other unwholesome state ultimately leads to our own mental and emotional pain. It creates guilt and remorse in our lives. It comes back to haunt us. It’s essential that you silently repeat the phrase and let it sink in—that you give it time to work, and not change the phrase you’ve chosen before its had a chance to allow a memory to come up of something you did or something someone else did. If you have given the phrase a chance to work for a while and nothing comes up, you could try another phrase like, “I forgive myself for causing myself and others pain.” You are removing any trapped negativity, bit by bit, with this practice. Don’t use phrases that put yourself down—negative phrases don’t work. Don’t use something like, “I forgive myself for being stupid.” These types of negative words will only increase your mental suffering. Experience the felt sense of forgiveness in your heart. When any hard feelings or painful experiences appear in your mind, the first thing you do is to forgive that, then relax and accept the painful feeling, letting it be there without reacting or judging yourself. Simply return to forgiving yourself. Notice what forgiveness feels like in your heartspace. Notice if you feel a release of the pain, a softening of your heart, a willingness to let go of the hurt. Let your heart and body be nourished with unconditional love for yourself. Avoid negative phrases toward yourself. As you sit in meditation, you might have negative feelings toward yourself that give rise to thoughts like “I don’t deserve to be happy” or “I don’t like myself because… .” If a thought like that arises, immediately forgive yourself and let go of that negativity. Just FORGIVE and RELAX in two steps. Do this with everything that pulls you away from forgiving yourself: 1. FORGIVE 2. RELAX Be sincere and keep your forgiveness going—let it act on anything negative that arises. Forgive any stories and hard feelings that come up. Forgive anything that arises that tries to stop your intention to forgive. Don’t get caught in repeating the story to yourself—that will only draw you away from the object of your meditation: the simple desire/wish to forgive yourself. Your goal is to keep forgiveness going until you feel like there is nothing more to forgive. Sit with this practice for at least thirty minutes. Stay with the “felt sense of forgiveness.” Like in the loving-kindness steps of Tranquil Wisdom Insight “TWIM” (as outlined in this recent blog post: How to Train Your Mind to Be Happy), you’re encouraged to smile, relax, and let the feeling of forgiveness emerge naturally. If distractions or resistance arise, use the 6Rs (as also discussed in this blog post) to gently let the resistance go and return to your meditation. Step Two: Forgive Others After you’ve forgiven yourself for what arises during your meditation, turn your focus on the people in your life you need to forgive. Offer forgiveness to people who come to mind whom you need to forgive. When you’re ready, allow to come to your mind whatever hurt feelings or grudges you hold toward specific people. Offer them the same wish of forgiveness. As the person arises in your mind, silently repeat a phrase such as “I forgive you (insert their name) for not understanding.” Or “I forgive you for not understanding you cause your own mental suffering.” Remember when someone acts negatively against you, they have no real wholesome understanding. They don’t realize that what they are doing will create even more hard-heartedness and guilt in themselves. They don’t understand that getting angry at someone or making them feel bad does not lead to their own happiness. So, like ourselves, we need to let go of the wounds caused by those people who’ve hurt us by forgiving them for not understanding. Don’t get caught up in the story. Don’t get caught up in the story of when and how the person offended you. Repeating the story in your mind will only trigger more anger and suffering as you recall the details. Instead, keep your focus on your phrase, “I forgive you for not understanding.” Allow yourself to feel in your heart the felt sense of your wish to forgive each person who comes to mind. Imagine the person smiling back at you. Imagine the person you’re bringing to mind smiles and receives your forgiveness.
It doesn’t matter if they actually receive your forgiveness. What’s important is that you allow their imagined smile to open your heart and affirm your release of anger, your mental suffering toward that person. You’re unblocking your emotional suffering so you can release the hardness within your body and connect with the natural flow of unconditional love. Step Three: Take a Walk After your meditation, continue the practice as you go for a walk for about fifteen minutes. During the walk, mentally repeat the phrases, “I forgive you; you forgive me.” This helps to further integrate the forgiveness process into your daily life, extending it beyond the meditation cushion. It keeps your mind and heart open to let the felt sense of forgiveness flow within your body. When you walk, walk in a way that you repeat the phrases with each stride as you walk. For example, with your left foot, take a step and mentally say, “I.” Then as you step with your right foot say, “forgive,” and as you step with the left foot, “you.” On your next step with your right foot, repeat the word, “You,” then left step “forgive,” right step, “me.” Repeat this process going back and forth with the above words. The idea is to get into a nice cadence while you’re getting your mind into the experience of forgiveness. “I forgive you. You forgive me.” And keep smiling as you do this. Forgive anyone or anything who comes up as you walk. This process of sitting and then walking creates a continuous flow of forgiveness without stopping. Step Four:
Take Your Forgiveness Practice into the Active Part of your Day You can take your forgiveness meditation into the rest of your day to stay centered and return to a sense of calm and inner peace whenever something or someone disturbs you. For example, if someone pulls out in front of you while you’re driving, instead of reacting with a negative gesture or thought, train your mind to respond with your phrase, “I forgive you for not understanding.” Come back to your phrase and the felt sense of forgiveness as many times as you need to. With practice, you’ll notice instead of getting agitated, you respond with forgiveness. And your blood pressure will probably lower too. | 
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