I have done a lot of bad things. I often think to myself that if my friends knew all of the bad things I did, they wouldn't want anything to do with me anymore. I don't really know, however, exactly how true that could be.
Recently, one of my past mistakes came back to haunt me. To spare you all the boring details, I did as much as I could to fix it and still received no forgiveness from a former friend. I realized that there was nothing that I could do, and I moved on. However, now that it's returned, I'm finding myself again wishing for forgiveness from this former friend.
I recently read this in a Buddhist book I have.
"The Buddha was sitting under a tree talking to his disciples when a man came and spit on his face. He wiped it off, and he asked the man, “What next? What do you want to say next?” The man was a little puzzled because he himself never expected that when you spit on somebody’s face, he will ask, “What next?” He had no such experience in his past. He had insulted people and they had become angry and they had reacted. Or if they were cowards and weaklings, they had smiled, trying to bribe the man. But Buddha was like neither, he was not angry nor in any way offended, nor in any way cowardly. But just matter-of-factly he said, “What next?” There was no reaction on his part.
Buddha’s disciples became angry, they reacted. His closest disciple, Ananda, said, “This is too much, and we cannot tolerate it. He has to be punished for it. Otherwise everybody will start doing things like this.”
Buddha said, “You keep silent. He has not offended me, but you are offending me. He is new, a stranger. He must have heard from people something about me, that this man is an atheist, a dangerous man who is throwing people off their track, a revolutionary, a corrupter. And he may have formed some idea, a notion of me. He has not spit on me, he has spit on his notion. He has spit on his idea of me because he does not know me at all, so how can he spit on me?
“If you think on it deeply,” Buddha said, “he has spit on his own mind. I am not part of it, and I can see that this poor man must have something else to say because this is a way of saying something. Spitting is a way of saying something. There are moments when you feel that language is impotent: in deep love, in intense anger, in hate, in prayer. There are intense moments when language is impotent. Then you have to do something. When you are angry, intensely angry, you hit the person, you spit on him, you are saying something. I can understand him. He must have something more to say, that’s why I’m asking, “What next?”"
Some Christian readers may think of Jesus' teaching of turning the other cheek. What they were trying to convey was not being passive-- No, not at all. In receiving the hostile action, be it phlegm or fist, Buddha and Jesus were both incredibly active in their forgiveness. They responded with love in their hearts.
I was requesting advice from one of my best friends earlier today. I told her that earlier this week I had received a threatening call from someone due to the aforementioned past mistake. When she learned I had wished the threatening caller a good evening, she was quite surprised.
"Being nice doesn't mean you have to be nice with even the jerky ones alright?Knowing when to stand up for yourself is important too."
I couldn't agree more. However, our views on what "standing up for oneself" meant differed. If I lead by example, and stand for what I believe in, that is standing up for myself in my eyes. I can avoid conflict as much as possible, and when confronted, ask "What next?" If I don't give people a reason to be hostile to me, I can have faith that eventually we can live in peace, even if we don't see each other or even live near each other.
The man who spit in the Buddha's face was wracked with guilt and uncertainty. It is said that once your life is touched by someone who has been Awakened (read: achieved Enlightenment) that you will never sleep the same way again. The next day, he returned to the Tree and he threw himself down at the Buddha's feet.
"The man looked at Buddha and said, “Forgive me for what I did yesterday.”
Buddha said, “Forgive? But I am not the same man to whom you did it. The Ganges goes on flowing, it is never the same Ganges again. Every man is a river. The man you spit upon is no longer here. I look just like him, but I am not the same, much has happened in these twenty-four hours! The river has flowed so much. So I cannot forgive you because I have no grudge against you.”
“And you also are new. I can see you are not the same man who came yesterday because that man was angry and he spit, whereas you are bowing at my feet, touching my feet. How can you be the same man? You are not the same man, so let us forget about it. Those two people, the man who spit and the man on whom he spit, both are no more. Come closer. Let us talk of something else.”"
This is a beautiful way of illustrating forgiveness. Time progresses. New experiences and new realizations bring people to be different every single day. I know that I can forgive myself for what I've done because I am not the same man who committed the mistake. I know that whether or not the others can forgive me, they are different as well. Not better, not worse. Different. The river has flowed so much.
If you are currently holding a grudge, consider that you are not the same person who had been spit on. Your past experiences have all made you something different. Also consider that your offender is not the same person, either. Since those two people who had the conflict no longer exist, there is no grudge and there is nothing to worry about anymore. Next time someone spits in your face, try and see into the situation mindfully and ask, "What next?"
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