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Forgive. - End of AhnGo (Meditation Retreat) Address


The insulted insult
The shamed shame
The pitied pity,
even if they have to find someone more pitiful, if not someone then some thing and if no one or no thing pitiful enough, beneath them enough, is found they will invent it
The angered rage, 
frequently when they can’t rage on their abuser they find someone weaker to rage onto
The miserable seek out those in greater misery
So too it is for the whole gamut of human emotion
We share!
It is innate in us
We share our hatred and love, our joy and misery, suffering and happiness
We share the good and the bad
The good we share to invite more of it
The bad we share to free ourselves of it
We see the good as born of us, birthed from us, gifted into the world by us
But the bad…the bad we see as imparted onto us, spewed onto us, forced upon us
Wake up!
One is a dream and the other a nightmare
It is all FROM us!
Beware, however, the danger!
Having found no one or thing blameworthy
Find oneself not blamed and punished but simply accountable
Having forgiven others forgive yourself and so wipe clean your heart
Forgive!
Don’t simply listen to the word
Forgive!
Look at it. Forgive with your eyes
Forgive with your skin
Forgive with every one of your senses
Forgive with your heart and soul
Forgive with every twist and turn of your brain and every twist and turn of your intestines Forgive your son and your daughter
Forgive your inner child and its trauma
Forgive your siblings
Forgive your mother and your father
Forgive your neighbor, your city, your county
Forgive the world
Forgive with every molecule of your being
Forgive …. for therein lies freedom and peaceForgive the fly its buzzing
Forgive the lion its roaring
Forgive the flower its fragrance
Forgive the winter its cold
Stop it. Here and now.
Defang the gears of karmic wheel so that they bite no more and therefore turn no more
Cycles broken
Cease to look for who to blame
Only then the blameless self appears before you, shining and bright, and still
And where there is a blameless self, there’s a blameless other and a single thought of forgiveness purifies the entire universe and every being within it.
Forgive.


With joined palms,
Sok Myong-Ahn, Aug 28, 2022





















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