Forgiveness is not just for major wrongs.
We often think of forgiveness in terms of major misdeeds. After all, forgiving is hard to pull off. Surely, it requires a serious reason. But if we save forgiveness just for major wrongs, we lose a vital cultivation tool. We need to forgive on a regular, not occasional, basis, because it is the everyday slights, not the major misdeeds that we keep running into. When others impugn us; mistreat us; inconvenience, irritate, or just plain bother us, we need to forgive. Then stop thinking of the person, and get on with our life. How do you forgive and forget, and why bother? Understanding causality, we realize that what was just done to us was the natural result of a karmic deed. And we remember that just as we want to alleviate our suffering we should also wish to alleviate the suffering of the other person. Together, we have been fueling the flames of our shared anger like two people anxiously fanning a smoldering fire. When we forgive another person, the fire is doused.