Forgiving Our Ancestors Part I: Causes & Conditions

(Early photograph of the New England town I grew up in.)

Of all the endeavors in a spiritual life, there are 3 tasks that remain most elusive to me:

1.) Trust,
2.) Faith, &
3.) Forgiveness.

The third, forgiveness, has been most on my mind and heart over the course of this summer in a more prominent way ever since I traveled to the mountains of rural America to spend some time with my family of origin- the family I was born into.

Before heading out there, I was reminded of the words of Jack Kornfield, the prominent western Buddhist teacher and author, who once said in a Dharmaseed Podcast I was listening to:

When Buddha and Jesus went home, they had trouble with their family too.

I have to tell you, I laughed right out loud when I heard that because a.) it was so funny, and b.) it was so validating.

Like most people I suspect, forgiveness as a spiritual practice becomes Advanced Placement Practice when it comes to family.

Not that I just began to introduce forgiveness into my spiritual practices just this year- no this has been an effort of many, many years.

It's interesting though, because this year something has felt different, like a fault line, deep underground, has finally begun to shift.

I find forgiveness is a lot like grief, in that, for the most part, it seems to unfold and unlock in quite small, but no-less meaningful moments.  Moments so subtle and unsuspecting that they usually take my breath away.

Take last week for example.

I was re-watching  a film I have seen many times, Steven Spielberg's 1997 movie Amistad, and a scene at the end of the picture all of the sudden cracked open the previously impenetrable protective wall I've built up inside of me that, while well-intended, makes forgiveness feel all but impossible.

It was the scene where U.S. President John Quincy Adams, played by the great actor Anthony Hopkins, presents the case as lead attorney of the United States vs. the Amistad Africans to the Supreme Court in 1841.

It is a beautiful scene worth watching or re-watching if you haven't in a while.

But what got me this time, was the very last part of President Adams speech which he slowly, thoughtfully, dictates next to a statue of his own father, President John Adams.

James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams: We've long resisted asking you for guidance. Perhaps we have feared in doing so we might acknowledge that our individuality which we so, so revere is not entirely our own. Perhaps we've feared an appeal to you might be taken for weakness. But, we've come to understand, finally, that this is not so. We understand now, we've been made to understand, and to embrace the understanding that who we are is who we were.

Perhaps it may sound strange to you that these words could have been a catalyst for forgiveness for me.  Or perhaps not.

But it may become more clear if I tell you that Radical Acceptance has been the single most helpful concept for me to engage in forgiveness as a spiritual practice because it holds the truth that everything, everything, has causes and conditions- even if I never know what they are.

When I allow myself to really spend time with the facts of the lives of those I am struggling to forgive, then  understanding (a stepping stone of forgiveness) soon follows, and I find myself saying:

"Of course so-and-so did or said x,y,z.  In fact, with those specific causes and conditions, how could things have possibly gone any other way?"

To be clear, Radical Acceptance of causes and conditions does not excuse unacceptable, inappropriate or unwholesome behaviors.  It does not.

But, it can help the individual who has felt hurt or harmed by those actions to move forward and remember that, as Mary Poppins says in the 1964 Disney movie Mary Poppins played by the actress Julie Andrews as the "practically perfect" British nanny to the 2 children she is taking care of:

Sometimes a person we love, through no fault of their own, can't see past the end of his nose.

I have to admit, I still don't fully understand the Buddhist concept of karma, but sometimes I wonder, if the baby steps I have begun to take in forgiveness might have something to do with this idea.

Lama Surya Das, a Western Buddhist teacher and author in the Dzogchen Tibetan tradition, writes in his 2003 book Letting Go of the Person You Used to Be: Lessons on Change, Loss and Spiritual  Transformation:

I am a Buddhist and, as such, I accept the reality of karma and the law of cause and effect. It makes good sense to me. But I also know that the laws of karma are far more complex than any simple sitcom version. We are living not only with our own personal karma, but also with the karma of every other being we meet...And of course, it isn't only about individual karma; there is group karma as well.

And what is a family if not a group?

Who we are is who we were.

But before you begin a deep dive into your family archives (which may yield only a rough sketch anyway if your family is as tight-lipped as mine) in order to dig up every who, what, when, where and why. Consider this:

Only omniscient awareness can totally comprehend causation with all its details, interconnection, and ramifications.  The Buddha said that only an omniscient Buddha, a perfectly enlightened and fully awakened being, could understand the myriad causes and conditions that bring about the color of a single peacock's feather.

(Also from Letting Go of the Person You Used to Be.)

So as long as I remain quite a ways away from "omniscient awareness," it is more likely that I may need to intersect my forgiveness practices with my faith practices.

I pray it may be so.

[This is Part One of a series of Blog Posts on the topic of Forgiving Our Ancestors. Stay tuned for Part II.]