Forgiveness is a big topic. This video gives us a starting point in approaching it from a Buddhist perspective. How do these principles feel to you? forgiving yourself? forgiving others? forgiving society? Others forgiving you?
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Forgiveness and Grief. This article provides a definition and proposed process of forgiveness. Both are developed by Enright, considered by many to be the founder of Forgiveness research, and they continue to be reworked as research sheds light on the many layers and dimensions of forgiveness. Here is an early definition of forgiveness (no wonder it is hard at times!):
A willingness to abandon one’s right to resentment, negative judgment, and indifferent behavior to one who unjustly injured us, while fostering the undeserved qualities of compassion, generosity and even love toward him or her” (Enright, R. D., & North, J. (1998). Introducing forgiveness. Exploring forgiveness, 3-8.).
h, and Here is a link to the article that got us started on our discussion, including a 4-phase model of forgiveness as put forth by Enright and colleagues, broken down further into a total of 20 steps. It suggests a fairly linear process of forgiveness. What do you think about this model? Is forgiveness linear? If not, does it more or less follow this pathway?