Forgiveness is Beautiful~

9 years ago,

I’d had enough of so much pain and sorrow, and the constant yelling. Soon after, I watched my mother cry bitterly as she made the decision to get a divorce. I was 17 years old at the time. My father cheated on my mother with two different women, thinking my mother wasn’t good enough for him anymore. Later in life I understood that it was he who felt not good enough, but  when I was 21, my father married again after 2,5 years divorced. Unfortunately, I was a unlucky woman who is really lack of affection from someone who called father. I grew into a young woman without the guidance of a father. In this world I don’t lack of anything other than the affection of a father. I don't even know what it's like to have father-daughter relationship because I honestly have no idea and experiences about this relationship. Pity me! I remember, one day he got very drunk and began calling me names like “little cockroach,” because he knew I would never be as good as others. My father made me feel so small for so long, but I’m finally ready to be strong.

  

I ever lived in wealth but we fall into poverty in the end. I almost dropped out of school when I was secondary. I can’t pay school fees and I need to find a way to earn money to be able back to school because I don’t want to be in the poverty. I hate poverty so much at that time. I remember my classmates laughing at me for wearing the same pair of blue skirts every day for a week.  I asked my mother to buy me some new clothes or new uniform and she told me I should be grateful for what I had. Poverty grabbed my happiness and my teenage years. I lost time to play with friends at my age. At that time I was 14 years old and I have to think about how do I get money to pay my school fees. How sad!

The divorce helped me become mature, stronger and wiser. I was always there for me and my siblings playing the role of both loving sister and father. My raising made me think that, if I ever had children, I would never let them live the hell I lived.

I learned this the hard way, sadly. Some days I would get very angry, and other days I would feel hopeless and unloved. This eventually pushed away the few people that really cared for me. I couldn’t change the past, and I didn’t like the insecure, angry woman that I had become. I had to release that pain and anger. Some people might view what happened to my father as karma, but it’s hard for me to see it that way. When I learned about his troubled childhood, I realized that’s where his behavior came from. I finally understood why he did what he did. I know a lot of people who had sad, painful childhoods, who turned out to be wonderful parents. Pain can give us huge lessons and make us better people. This was the most important lesson in my life. I was the target of joke at school because, at that time, children who came from broken homes were seen as troubled kids. I hated my father every time someone made jokes about my divorced parents. I blamed my father for all my failed relationships. I hopelessly looked for approval from the men I dated, only to be dumped like a hot frying pan. I was destroying myself with hatred and pain.

Trying to find something and someone to inspire me, I came across one quote by The Buddha that struck a chord with me:

“Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” (Buddha)

The Buddha also said that, “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”

I was poisoning my life, my few friendships, and myself. I’d missed a lot of the big things in life because I’d spent so much time hating my father and my problems. I learned not to repeat his mistakes, and to pay attention to my own behavior. The past can be painful but it doesn’t have to define us. We make our own present; we are our own person. We can’t erase the past, but we can choose to let go of the pain in order to live a happier, more fulfilling life. I focused on myself, spent time with family, eventually found good friends, and then finally felt lighter and at peace.

In the end, I learned that forgiveness is not about the other person; it is about ourselves. Everybody in life has enemies. The best way to stop an enemy is not to confront them and hurt them, the best way to confront an enemy is through a lot of compassion. A lot of forgiveness. Forgiveness doesn’t mean let them take advantage of you. Without forgiveness the world can never be released from the sorrows of the past.  Someone quipped, “Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past.” Forgiveness is a way to move on. Forgiveness is fundamentally for our own sake, for our own mental health. It is a way to let go of the pain we carry.

That experience encouraged me, but when I turned to my father, the process was much more difficult. Forgiveness took many years, but in the end I forgive my father. As I meditated and wept, I felt the pain of my own closed heart and wondered how I could forgive him. I breathed and practiced forgiveness. Time heals all wounds, or so they say. That’s when I realized it made no sense to continue hating him for the horrible childhood he gave me. Life was already giving him a tough lesson. I know he is going through as much pain as I am feeling. I wanted him to know that I forgive him for what he did.

I meditated on my own for a night at a savanna surrounded by trees and accompanied by chirping birds. At that moment, when I was meditating alone, something popped-up in my mind. That’s called Forgiveness Verses :

If today, yesterday or long time ago, anyone has done something wrong on me; through body, speech or mind, big or small, because of envy or less wisdom, now sincerely I forgive them and negate revenge.

I forgive, because remembering how often I also make mistakes.

I forgive, because realizing how much I always defend myself, expecting forgiveness for my own mistakes.

I forgive, because knowing that by keeping evil desire, I will hurt myself more than others could do to me.

I forgive, because promised myself not going to talk about other people's mistakes to others.

I forgive, because knowing that the desire of revenge will only cause confusion, fears and anxiety in me.

I forgive, because in this way that loving kindness, compassion and let go feeling will develop in me.

I forgive, because knowing that just like me, they were still burning by greed, hatred and ignorance.

I hope this forgiveness would help me to be able to forgive again tomorrow and each day. Hopefully this forgiveness will encourage them to also be able to give forgiveness to me and others. Hopefully forgiveness help me to bring up the seed of  release, kindness, help me reach liberation and enlightenment.