Universe: Good day, dear one!

Me (Alexandra): It is indeed, dear Universe! Good day!

U: Why so cheerful, may we inquire?

A: You may! I attended a high-energy Buddhist meeting at the Toronto SGI Culture Centre this morning. The atmosphere was definitely celebratory, the sky outside was blue and cloudless, we sang a life-affirming song. It was great! I had a friend with me who often feels depressed, and she said how happy it made her feel to be there. Lovely!

And do you know one of the best things?

U: We have a feeling we will, very soon!

A: Right, as usual!

I didn’t feel nervous or out of sorts on the way to the meeting. I actually questioned myself about this as challenges occurred and I remained calm. When the last-minute request for a ride with me to the centre came in? Calm. When I took the wrong exit from Allen Road, causing the journey to be a bit longer? Calm. After we parked in the Green P behind the centre and I needed to feed the parking meter but there were several people ahead of me, trying to figure out how to use it? Calm.

It was amazing! And even though I fully expected us to be late, in the end, we weren’t!

U: Your joy pleases us. To what do you attribute your calmness?

A: I have my Buddhist practice, and I take lots of supplements, but I attribute my state of active tranquility this morning to two additional things.

U: We are listening attentively.

A: Thank you. It’s so nice to talk to someone who listens attentively.

I’ve been doing app-assisted meditation for just over a month now. The purpose of it is to train the mind into a calm state and to learn to focus. It’s an app plus headgear that I purchased years ago – seven years ago to be exact. Typical me, I started using it and soon after, stopped. It was just sitting on a shelf waiting for me to get my act together to take it into a charity shop. Glad I didn’t!

Reading Dr. James Doty’s memoir Into The Magic Shop this summer, which is about his struggle to learn and live the brain/heart connection, opened my mind to the idea of using the app again. As a 12-year-old kid, he struggled with focus and his meditation teacher told him to focus on a candle flame. I have trouble with staying focused, but I couldn’t see myself using a candle flame. Too sort of boring and old-school. “Wait a minute!” I thought. “I’ve got that Muse equipment from years ago. That was about focusing!” I ignored my mind’s objection that I’d find it difficult to work out how to use it after so many years. (It wasn’t.) And blow me down –

U: Pardon? You want us to send a great wind to blow you over?

A: No! It’s just an expression of great surprise!

U: Curious. Please continue. We apologize for the interruption.

A: That’s okay. I was going to say that to my great surprise, I really love my daily meditation session now. I look forward to it, like a treat! And I’m sure that’s one of the reasons I felt so calm this morning.

U: And the second reason?

A: Ah! It’s good!

Two days ago, I watched a podcast video by Dr. Rangan Chatterjee called After 25 Years as a Doctor, I Can’t Stay Silent Anymore… It’s about the fact that not everything that is measurable matters, and everything that matters isn’t measurable. He spoke of three things that are crucial for human health and wellbeing that aren’t measurable by taking blood samples and sending them to a lab. One was purpose, another was relationships and the one that really spoke to me was forgiveness.

U: Humans struggle with forgiving, we have observed.

A: Yes, we do. Dr. Chatterjee spoke about it in terms of letting go of anger and resentment towards another person because those feelings create an inner source of chronic stress. And chronic stress is a factor in autoimmune disease and even cancer. A 30-year Stanford University research project has shown that forgiveness reduces depression and anxiety, lowers blood pressure and improves mood.

Dr. Chatterjee noted that many of us have a problem with forgiving someone, because we misunderstand and think we’re forgiving or even condoning the person’s behaviour, which, in some cases, might be heinous. He addressed this concern often, and said, “It’s not about excusing what happened. It’s about not letting that thing that happened in the past continue to have a hold on you in the present.”

Over the years, he has adopted a mindset that says: “If I had the same background as that person, I would have done the same thing.” He went on:

“I choose to believe that every single person is doing the best that they can based upon their life experiences up to that point. … If I was that other person, if I was born where they were born, if I had the parents that they had, if I had the childhood experiences and maybe the childhood bullying that they had, if I had the friends that they had, if I read the newspapers that they read, if I had the toxic first boss that they had, I’d probably see the world in exactly the same way as them.”

Speaking from personal experience, it’s really tough in the beginning to even consider forgiving, because it’s so much easier to lay blame. And blaming and complaining happen all around us in society all the time, so they seem normal. The more open kind of mindset to forgive requires, and brings about, a human revolution, as encouraged in SGI Nichiren Buddhism. This means a change of heart and mind. Growth as a more humane human being.

Dr. Chatterjee focused on shedding resentment and anger and forgiving others. I applied it to myself as shedding guilt and forgiving myself.

I now see guilt as a form of anger that I harbour against myself. It’s a kind of regret coloured by deep resentment. “Why did you do that?” “How stupid can you be?” “Why didn’t you pay more attention?” It’s like the adult me berating and bullying the little-girl me. And I couldn’t escape from the bully, because she was me.

Dr. Chatterjee’s voice was so kind and patient when he said, “I choose to believe that every single person is doing the best that they can based upon their life experiences up to that point,” that I was able to forgive myself, on the spot, for a mistake that I had made earlier in the week. I’d been really struggling with it, and feeling bad, so I felt that a burden was lifted from my shoulders, from my heart. Freedom!

And so I was calm this morning. I wasn’t mentally beating myself up with accusations like, “Why didn’t you get up immediately when the alarm first went off?” or worries like, “We’re going to be late and it’ll be awful and it’s all my fault.”

I’ve been focusing on forgiving everyone – including myself – for everything for a wee while now as part of my daily Alphabet of the Heart. And they say that what you focus on, you move towards, and attract more of.

U: Indeed. We are heartily pleased that you noticed Dr. Chatterjee’s wise, compassionate blogpost that we sent you to assist your growth.

A: So am I! I’m also grateful.

Because I’m beginning to understand how truly kind forgiveness is.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash