Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘We’ve been hurt, and we’ve hurt others. Even if we haven’t been hurt too much or hurt others too badly, so much hurting has al ready happened in the human past that it’s engraved in our DNA.

No one escapes the scars. They occlude the flow of love. These hurts that echo through the human past keep coming back on a daily basis. We feel them every day in our present engagements. The world consists of wounded people who have become hardened, alienated, estranged

So forgiveness practice is basic. We don’t need to have had something done to us or to have done harm to others. The hurt is always there. We have to forgive the world for being as it is, others for being as they are, ourselves for being as we are. And we need to be forgiven by ourselves, others, and by life. Those who feel close to God seek forgiveness from God. Forgiveness is a basic practice for bodhisattvas. It comes from the depth of their sorrow and from their loving understanding of the painful world we live in.’ (The World Could Be Otherwise)