Forgiveness Versus Reconciliation

In Pali, the language of early Buddhism, the word for forgiveness—khama—also means “the earth.”

A mind like the earth is non-reactive and unperturbed. When you forgive me for harming you, you decide not to retaliate, to seek no revenge. You don’t have to like me. You simply unburden yourself of the weight of resentment and cut the cycle of retribution that would otherwise keep us ensnarled in an ugly samsaric wrestling match. This is a gift you can give us both, totally on your own, without my having to know or understand what you’ve done.

Reconciliation—patisaraniya-kamma—means a return to amicability, and that requires more than forgiveness. It requires the reestablishing of trust. If I deny responsibility for my actions or maintain that I did no wrong, there’s no way we can be reconciled. Similarly, if I insist that your feelings don’t matter or that you have no right to hold me to your standards of right and wrong, you won’t trust me not to hurt you again.

To regain your trust, I have to show my respect for you and for our mutual standards of what is and is not acceptable behavior, to admit that I hurt you and that I was wrong to do so, and to promise to exercise restraint in the future. At the same time, you have to inspire my trust, too, in the respectful way you conduct the process of reconciliation. Only then can our friendship regain a solid footing.

Thus there are right and wrong ways of attempting reconciliation: those that skillfully meet these requirements for reestablishing trust and those that don’t. To encourage right reconciliation among his followers, the Buddha formulated detailed methods for achieving it, along with a culture of values that encourages putting those methods to use.

The methods are contained in the Vinaya, the Buddha’s code of monastic discipline. Long passages in the Vinaya are devoted to instructions for how monks should confess their offenses to one another, how they should seek reconciliation with lay people they have wronged, how they should settle protracted disputes, and how a full split in the Sangha—the monastic community—should be healed.

Although directed to monks, these instructions embody principles that apply to anyone seeking reconciliation of differences, whether personal or political.

This reflection by Ajahn Geoff is from the Essays book, Purity of Heart: Essays on the Buddhist Path, “Reconciliation, Right & Wrong.”