人生的两门基本课程

goodman2008

Human growth is a process of experimentation, trial, and error, ultimately leading to wisdom.
　　To ease this process of learning, you must first master the basic lessons of compassion and forgiveness. Without these essential lessons, you remain trapped in your limited view and unable to parlay1 mistakes into valuable learning opportunities.
　　Compassion. Compassion is the act of opening your heart. To live in a state of compassion means you approach2 the world with your emotional barriers lowered. Compassion is the emotional glue connecting you to your essence and to the essence of those around you.
　　You have the ability to choose whether or not you will learn the lessons you are presented with, so you will then need to use your discretion3 to choose whether to invite in compassion or remain closed. If you choose compassion, you can try on what it would feel like to be that person you are judging and imagine putting yourself in her reality. This will connect you to her essence and evaporate4 the judgment encrusted5 around your heart.
　　Compassion is also required at those times when you are harshly judging yourself. If you have made what you perceive to be a mistake, or failed to live up to your own expectations, you will most likely put up a barrier between your essence and the part of you that is the alleged wrongdoer. Compassion will then open the door to the possibility of forgiveness and will allow you to release those judgments that are holding you in self- contempt.
　　Forgiveness. Forgiveness is the act of erasing6 an emotional debt. As you move from compassion to forgiveness, your heart is already open, and you engage in a conscious and deliberate release of resentment. Perceiving past actions as mistakes implies guilt and blame, and it is not possible to learn anything meaningful while you are engaged in blaming.
　　There are four kinds of forgiveness. The first is beginner forgiveness for yourself.
　　The second kind of forgiveness is beginner forgiveness for another.
　　The third kind of forgiveness is advanced forgiveness of yourself. This is for serious transgressions, the ones you carry with deep shame. When you do something that violates your own values and ethics, you create a chasm between your standards and your actual behavior. In such a case, you need to work very hard at forgiving yourself for these deeds so that you can close this chasm and re align with the best part of yourself. This does not mean that you should rush to forgive yourself or not feel regret or remorse7; but wallowing in these feelings for a protracted period of time is not healthy, and punishing yourself excessively will only creates a bigger gap between you and your ethics.
　　The last and perhaps most difficult one is the advanced forgiveness of another. At some time of our life, you may have been severely wronged or hurt by another person to such a degree that forgiveness seems impossible. However, harboring resentment and revenge fantasies only keeps you trapped in victimhood. Under such a circumstance, you should force yourself to see the bigger picture, by so doing, you will be able to shift the focus away from the anger and resentment. It is only through forgiveness that you can erase wrongdoing and clean the memory. When you can finally release the situation, you may come to see it as a necessary part of your growth.