Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Forgiveness and Compassion Christianity and Buddhism
Jeffrey
Veteran
in Philosophy
Compassion and Forgiveness
Lama Shenpen Hookham
Summary: How compassion and forgiveness can be understood in relation to the idea of being punished for negative actions. The power of repentance in Buddhism.
A student writes:
"I think spontaneous tears are often a sign of genuine compassion and love arising in us - a kind of empathy, a sharing in vulnerability and oneness.
Connected with this is the vexing question (for me) about rebirth in hell. In the Christian dispensation, we believe God forgives us our negative actions if we are open enough to repent. Or else we forgive one another or ourselves. Compassion and wisdom make forgiveness possible we might say.
I wonder how this could be described from a Buddhist point of view, especially bearing in mind 'non-duality' when we stop polarising good and evil actions."
Lama Shenpen:
Yes, sometimes when our hearts are touched, tears well up, don’t they? It’s a sign of how closely the mind and body are wrapped up in each other. It might be tears or it might be some other response. I think it varies from person to person.
Some people seem to by-pass tears and words and their compassion expresses itself immediately in action or in some other deep movement of intention – of which prayer is probably a good example.
Your question about stopping polarising good and evil actions is not clear. Are you under the impression that since good and evil are polar opposites and are therefore conceptually created opposites, there is no evil and so nothing to be forgiven for?
That would be a wrong understanding. One does not go beyond the conceptual mind by dropping isolated concepts here and there. One has to encounter non-conceptual reality face to face as it were, and that is more like meeting God face to face.
I think in Christianity, if you get that far, forgiveness is implied isn’t it? There would be no more forgiving required. Forgiveness is what allows us to enter into such a state of grace. So it’s the same in Buddhism.
You rely on the power of the Buddha or the power of the Living Truth of the Dharma to awaken you to that non-conceptual reality and whenever we turn towards it with a penitent heart, forgiveness is its nature. Of course it forgives and restores us and gives us the grace or power to let go of the bad habits we have accumulated and to recognise the truth that lies beyond them.
I think the sense of compassion coming towards us is pretty much the same as the sense of compassion one would get from feeling forgiven by God.
In Buddhism there are five powers of repentance as they are called. These are the power that comes from confession, that is, acknowledging our fault; the power that comes from the adhistana (blessing) of the one we confess to (for Buddhists - the Buddha and his Sangha); the power coming from the resolve not to commit those actions again; the power that comes from actually carrying out that resolve; and the power that comes from doing compensatory actions, that is, good deeds to kind of cancel out the power of the negative ones - like saving life to compensate for taking life and so on.
I think it is easy to see from this that forgiveness and the natural movement of Openness Clarity and Sensitivity are talking about the same fundamental reality. What do you think?
Lama Shenpen Hookham.
0
Comments
Once we have recognised and named our fault, there arises the need and desire to change. Confession of the fault, via the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the Catholic tradition or by personal prayer in the Reformed tradition, arises directly from the first movement. This act of confession, if sincere, leads automatically to a resolve for an "amendment of life", which is termed "a firm process of amendment". This is not always easy and, in the Christian mind-set, assistance is sought from Grace, the free gift given by God through the mystery of the compassion manifested in the Incarnation of Christ.
The process is underpinned by 'atonement' through positive action, as is stated above: " good deeds to kind of cancel out the power of the negative ones - like saving life to compensate for taking life and so on."
The caricatural view that Catholic Christians can 'go to Confession', receive Absolution and then go out and repeat the negative action is nonsense, of course, but, time and again as we all know in our own lives, our intention to amend our lives may weaken and the process gone through many times before this wholesome 'medicine' actually works.
As a counselling therapist for decades, I would point out that the therapeutic process can be described in much the same way, even if the language used may be somewhat different.
I just watched an old movie from 85 called "the mission" with robert denero who plays a murderer and a slaver who repented with jesuit monks.
Both stories are fairly similar, powerful stories of redeption. Both buddha and jesus preached metta for all beings in their own ways in the context of their time and place.