Heart of Forgiveness

January 27, 2003
This short book by the first ordained Buddhist priest to be certified as a hospital chaplain is long on helpfulness and honesty. Forgiveness, says Bastis, is not a decision that emanates from the discriminating forebrain. Instead, it is a process of re-opening a heart that feels wronged and hence unlikely to feel any love for the wrongdoer, a process that requires self-awareness, readiness and practice. To rediscover the "final form of love" (a phrase from the great Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr that Bastis uses as an epigraph) that is expressed in forgiveness, Bastis begins with Buddhist morality, using the noble precepts that define ethical conduct. She then explains the "poisons" of anger, greed and ignorance as reasons for wrongdoing. Within this framework, forgiveness can be understood as a process of developing awareness and compassion, including compassion for self-wronging. Bastis supplies plenty of meditation exercises based on watching the breath and on invocations of compassion (loving-kindness, or metta
practice). The book's principal virtue is its candor. Bastis has spent long periods of her life needing to be forgiven, a history that gives her good credentials. Her exercises occasionally move a practitioner too quickly through the slow process of forgiveness, and more stories from others' experiences could help illustrate her teachings. But perhaps the slenderness of the book is a way of making the daunting, and much needed, practice of forgiveness seem easier and more inviting.