What she said

I just read an article that summed up what I've been trying to say about discernment all this time -- it was a little moment of rediscovering what I already knew. The article was called Hot Buddha, Cold Buddha, by Judith Lasater.

I've been thinking a lot these days about the relationship between forgiveness and trust and thinking it had something to do with this concept of discernment. Lasater talks about the difference between acknowledgement and acceptance. Somehow this helped me make the connection. I've been thinking that forgiveness is about acknowledging and accepting something that happened in the past. Trust is about moving into the future with faith that those things will not happen again. It troubled me that there was no present in that explanation. No now. How do you get from forgiveness to trust? What action do you take?

Lasater says you don't have to accept everything you acknowledge. This is where your agency comes in, and discernment -- your ability to act to make change, your ability to move forward without being in denial. In a section on the concept of nonattachment, she writes:

The practice of discrimination leads to the next part of vairagya: understanding the difference between acknowledgment and acceptance. Many years ago, I somehow concluded that to practice letting go was to accept everything exactly as it is. I now have a different perspective. I have learned that there are certain things I will never accept: child abuse, torture, racism, willful environmental damage, the inhumane treatment of animals, to name a few. However, if I am going to practice—and live—with clarity, I must acknowledge that these things exist and not live in a state of denial.

Paradoxically, when I live with the deep acknowledgment of what is, then and only then can I live in clarity. Once I am living in clarity, I can choose my actions and let go of the fruits of my labors, becoming deliciously lost in the process of acting from compassion. If I just accept things as they are, I may never choose to alleviate my suffering or the suffering of others. This so-called acceptance is really complacency disguised as spiritual practice.

I have heard this called "idiot compassion." It means offering forgiveness and acceptance with no discrimination.

So... this helps explain the decisions I've made, the action I've taken. I can acknowledge and even accept past betrayal... but I choose not to move forward in denial of what has rightly been called my active mistrust because it is causing me to suffer. And this suffering just prolongs the suffering of those I love, those who love me.

That doesn't really help me answer the question of how to get to trust after forgiveness. But, it's a start.