As some of you know, I have been working backbends for the summer. Whenever I practice and teach backbends, unintentionally I tend to become more connected to heart qualities like loving-kindness, compassion, and forgiveness, to name a few.Normally when I practice any of these heart qualities, it is often separate from my asana practice . But as a famous saying goes, “How you do anything is how you do everything.” Before I knew it, this practice started to spill over in many other aspects of my life, particularly my life on my mat.
Let me backtrack just a bit. A couple of years ago I got introduced to a mind/body practice called Budokon. It is a beautiful, yet deeply challenging, discipline that combines martial arts with yoga (no, not doing a karate kick in downward dog). It appears to be so challenging, in fact, that the rigid perfectionist in me thought it was better to not do it at all, than to attempt it and not “succeed” according to my usually high standards.
Without thinking much of it, I practiced backbends this year, and as a result became really connected to compassion and forgiveness. Then all of a sudden it dawned on me: When on my mat, why not channel that forgiveness towards myself?
With this newfound outlook, I attempted Budokon… And loved it! It challenges me mentally and physically in different ways than my yoga and meditation practice do, yet the philosophy is very much the same. I’ve only been practicing for about a month but already I see how it is changing my body and my confidence. All this to say, if we create space for forgiveness, we may surprise ourselves with just how far we can reach.
On a more technical note, it is believed that forgiveness can be cultivated through regular repetition of particular phrases. One thing that is a must when practicing any heart quality is patience. One of my teachers, Mark Coleman, relates this work to the act of melting a block of ice around our heart. The more we repeat the phrases, the more we melt away the ice, but we only find out that it’s working when we break through the ice. This can take days, weeks, months, years, even lifetimes.
For those interested in practicing Forgiveness, below are the phrases. They can be practiced in seated meditation, walking meditation, or any other time of the day (e.g. waiting in line, sitting on the metro). Feel free to repeat just one or two of the phrases, or all three, over and over.
For any harm I may have caused others, knowingly or unknowingly, with my thoughts, words, or actions, I ask for their forgiveness.
For any harm others may have caused me, knowingly or unknowingly, with their thoughts, words, or actions, I forgive them the best I can.
For any harm I may have caused myself, knowingly or unknowingly, with my thoughts, words, or actions, I forgive myself as best I can.
Another thing worthy of note is, as Jack Kornfield says, “Forgiveness is giving up all hope for a better past.” No- one said this work would be easy, but plenty of people, including myself, say this work is necessary.
