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Apologies and forgiveness

How to free your mind—Tara the liberator

A two-day workshop conducted at Tai Pei Buddhist Centre, Singapore, in October of 2006.

Discussion questions:

  • Apologizing
    • What does it mean to apologize?
    • Who do you need to apologize to?
    • What is preventing you from apologizing?
    • What obstacles do you need to overcome so that you will be able to apologize? How can you change your mind so that your mind finds it easy and happy to apologize?
  • Forgiving
    • What does it mean to forgive?
    • Who do you need to forgive?
    • What is preventing you from forgiving that person?
    • What changes can you make in your mind so that forgiving feels good and is something that you want to do?
  • Why it is important to forgive and to apologize.

Tara workshop 07: Discussion Day 2, Part 1 (download)

Discussion debrief

  • If somebody gives a fake apology, do we forgive them?
  • Is there a difference between forgiving and reconciliation?
  • What is the difference between Emotional Healing Therapies and Dharma practice?
    • It’s important for us to get in touch with our emotions because we can’t heal from our emotions if we can’t acknowledge having them.
    • Question is, does just recognizing what we feel necessarily heal us?
  • When we join a religion, we feel we have to be good and try to suppress our negative emotions. How do we overcome this?

Tara workshop 08: Discussion Day 2, Part 2 (download)

Venerable Thubten Chodron

Venerable Chodron emphasizes the practical application of Buddha’s teachings in our daily lives and is especially skilled at explaining them in ways easily understood and practiced by Westerners. She is well known for her warm, humorous, and lucid teachings. She was ordained as a Buddhist nun in 1977 by Kyabje Ling Rinpoche in Dharamsala, India, and in 1986 she received bhikshuni (full) ordination in Taiwan. Read her full bio.