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I used to be quite a severely unforgiving person. (Fortunately, things have improved greatly since.) The slightest bit of evil that I see others do I would condemn so greatly that I would slap a label of ‘evil-doer’ on the person for life. I would shun this person for indefinite time till that person redeems oneself in some sufficient way. Even though it is ‘natural’ to imagine the person who offends to deserve suffering, I realised that the one who suffers the most in the moment is myself – for bearing a grudge. This is really uncompassionate both ways because the alienation does not help to better either person at all<\/span>. Now, don’t you beat yourself up for being unforgiving. You need to forgive yourself for being unforgiving to others too! Below is an article on forgiveness that I wrote for TheDailyEnlightenment.com<\/a> six years ago on a similar vein of thought…<\/p>\n Bodhisattvas are thoroughly respectable – Stonepeace<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Bodhisattva Who ‘Cried’ Truth<\/strong><\/p>\n Once upon a very\u00a0ancient time, there was a Bodhisattva called “Never Despise”, because\u00a0whenever he sees someone, no matter bad\u00a0they might seem, he\u00a0respectfully\u00a0says,\u00a0“I do not despise you, for you will become a Buddha.”<\/span> Despite their apparent faults, he\u00a0practised seeing their pure\u00a0Buddha-nature, the potential to be Buddhas, (or\u00a0the hidden potentials within them which\u00a0are not different\u00a0from other Buddhas’, full of perfect compassion and wisdom).\u00a0Those who did not understand got angry, throwing sticks and stones at him. Never Despise\u00a0would humbly retreat some\u00a0distance,\u00a0before calling back to them, reaffirming that\u00a0it is indeed true that\u00a0they would become Buddhas.<\/p>\n With this core\u00a0practice of\u00a0deep reverence of\u00a0the Buddha-nature in others,\u00a0it\u00a0led him to perfect the six perfections of generosity, morality, patience, energy, concentration and wisdom. He subsequently\u00a0attained Buddhahood,\u00a0guiding countless others to do the same. As revealed in the Lotus Sutra, this Bodhisattva\u00a0was none other than Shakyamuni himself in a previous life. He became the Buddha by virtue of awareness of his Buddha-nature,\u00a0and by cultivating this awareness in\u00a0others.<\/span> The Bodhisattva was seen by some as the proverbial “boy who cried wolf” when he was only telling the truth. How ironic is it that the Buddhas see “themselves” in us while we belittle ourselves. Our innate Buddha-nature is like\u00a0the most\u00a0beautiful\u00a0unseen “image”\u00a0trapped in the block of marble. To set it free, all we have to do is to chisel away the unneeded parts – our defilements of greed, hatred and delusion.<\/p>\n When we cease to have faith in each other or\u00a0ourselves, we cease walking\u00a0the Bodhisattva path of helping each other become Buddhas. When we think a person who always turns a deaf ear to\u00a0our Dharma advice\u00a0is hopeless, we are disbelieving the Buddha’s teaching that we all have perfect Buddha-nature. <\/span>Our primary mission is not to instantly “save” all beings with the Dharma\u00a0– but to try our best in each instant, despite all odds, as Bodhisattva Never Despise did… for as long as obstinate beings are not yet touched by our sincerity and the Dharma.\u00a0How do we make the world a better place if we do not believe we can all be better persons?\u00a0Our imperfect human nature is temporary; but\u00a0our perfect Buddha-nature is timeless. May we “Never Despise” ourselves, as we gain confidence in our Buddha-nature through\u00a0spiritual practice. May we “Never Despise” one another, as we gain confidence in one another’s Buddha-nature. If we lose heart in Buddha-nature, we lose our most immediate refuge! Never give up!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I used to be quite a severely unforgiving person. (Fortunately, things have improved greatly since.) The slightest bit of evil…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[223,126,57,198,21,373,45,92,58],"class_list":["post-5339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mix","tag-bodhisattva","tag-buddha-nature","tag-compassion","tag-evil","tag-forgiveness","tag-refuge","tag-stonepeace","tag-suffering","tag-wisdom","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nbecause they never lose the least respect for others [as all have Buddha-nature],
\nwhile helping the so-called ‘less respectable’
\nbecome thoroughly respectable with the Dharma.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/112.jpg?resize=104%2C94\")
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