In the sermon, Love Your Enemies, Martin Luther King, Jr. writes: “Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on an evil act. It means, rather, that the evil act no longer remains as a barrier to the relationship” (1963a, 50)

King’s above statement is important because it summarizes the many complex elements of the forgiveness process, which are: 1) forgiveness is not ignoring or forgetting the wrong act; 2) forgiveness is not condoning, justifying, or imposing a false label on the wrong act; 3) forgiveness requires an understanding of the dichotomy between an action and the agent of the action; 4) forgiveness brings reconciliation with the interconnected link of our humanity.

Forgiveness is not forgetting. King states, “Certainly one can never forget, if that means erasing it totally from his mind” (1963a 51). In a similar manner, Desmond Mpilo Tutu writes that forgiveness is not like amnesia, “that the past, far from disappearing or lying down and being quiet, has an embarrassing and persistent way of returning and haunting us unless it has in fact been dealt with adequately” (1999, 28).

Tutu’s linkage between acknowledgment and facing the wrong act is a part of healing. When people are harmed by violence, prejudice, maltreatment, etc., it later fosters psychological and emotional pains, anxieties, and fears. In Antidotes For Fear, King writes, “we must unflinchingly face our fears and honestly ask ourselves why we are afraid” (1963a 117). As The Dalai Lama contends, the inner suffering of hatred, resentment and anxiety prevents people from obtaining inner peace—happiness (1999). Therefore, forgiving is not forgetting, rather it is an acknowledgment of an honest examination of the wrong act.

Forgiveness is not condoning, justifying, or minimizing a wrong act. King expresses the latter by employing the words “ignoring” and false label” (1963a 50). This implies that we recognize the nature of the act as it truly is. The Dalai Lama states that there are two components to consider, a) the act itself, and b) the “kun long,” Tibetan for motive, inspiration, or intent (1999, 30). One needs to fully examine and understand the complex nature of the act to fully internalize it. Tutu writes, “unless the past was acknowledged and dealt with adequately, it could put paid to that future as a baneful blight on it” (199, 29).

Forgiveness requires an understanding of the dichotomy between an action and the agent of the action. King writes:
We must recognize that the evil deed of the enemy-neighbor, the thing that hurts, never quite expresses all that he is. An element of goodness may be found even in our worst enemy. Each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves. A persistent civil war rages within all of our lives (1963a, 51).

The duality expressed in human behavior, and the dichotomy between action and agent is highlighted in the works of Tutu and the Dalai Lama. Tutu’s writings about the Truth and Reconciliation Council’s work in South Africa states:
…however diabolical the act , it did not turn the perpetrator into a demon. We had to distinguish between the deed and the perpetrator, between the sinner and the sin, to hate and condemn the sin while being filled with compassion for the sinner. The point is that if perpetrators were to be despaired of as monsters and demons, then we were thereby letting accountability go out the window because we were then declaring that they were not moral agents to be held responsible for the deeds they had committed. Much more importantly, it meant that we abandoned all hope of their being able to change for the better (199, 83).

The Dalai Lama holds, “we cannot, therefore, say that any one characteristic [or action] is what finally constitutes myself or, on the other hand, is the sum of them” (1999, 44). The Dalai Lama states that patience is a systematic reflection on the past, in the light of the complexity of circumstances and behavior, while being informed of the benefits of spiritual ethical principles. He writes:
When so pa [patience in Tibetan] is combined with our ability to discriminate between action and agent, forgiveness arises naturally. Moreover, so pa has no equal…protecting our concern for others, whatever their behavior toward us. It enables us to reserve our judgment toward the act, and it enables us to have compassion for the individual (1999, 106).

Recognizing the duality and the dichotomy between an action and the agent makes reconciliation with our humanity and the humanity of the transgressor possible. Forgiveness brings reconciliation with the interconnected link of our humanity. Without this reconciliation of the interconnected relationship that all individuals share, including victims and perpetrators, there cannot be forgiveness. Without this kind of reconciliation, there exists an I-it relationship.

Tutu uses the African Weltanschauung word “ubuntu” to conceptualize the relationship of people. It means that every essence of all humanity is bound up, and linked together in one interconnected relationship, which is expressed through compassion. Tutu writes, “My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up in yours.” We belong in a bundle of life. We say, “A person is a person through other persons” (1999, 31). And elsewhere he states, “We are bound up in a delicate network of interdependence because….To dehumanize another inexorably means that one is dehumanized as well” (1999,35). Lastly, Tutu holds, “Our humanity was intertwined. The humanity of the perpetrator of apartheid’s atrocities was caught up and bound up in that of his victim whether he liked it or not” (1999, 103).

Similar to the above, is King’s conceptualization of the Greek word “agape” (1963a,52). Rooted in the Christian tradition, King defines “agape” as the unconditional love that God has for humanity, and that fundamentally links humanity to a relationship with one another and God. From this relationship proceeds the essential essence of mankind’s humanity—love, compassion, the ability to hate the sin while loving the sinner (1963a, 52).

The Dalai Lama holds that there are spiritual qualities that make up a universal spiritual ethic, which links all of humanity. At the heart of this ethic is the revelation that we all equally seek out, and deserve, happiness and peace. This happiness is connected to that of others. Therefore, we should do no harm to others since another’s suffering brings suffering to one’s self (1999, 22,73). We share a common “shen pen kyi,” which is a union and thought to help others (Dalai Lama, 1999, 23). This requires “shen dug ngal wa la mi so pa” (empathy), which is an “inability to bear the sight of another’s suffering” (Dali Lama, 1999, 64). The most basic underlying spiritual quality that connects humanity is “nying je” (love or compassion), which links one’s emotional and cognitive faculties to set the conditions for the development of other spiritual qualities such as “so pa” (patience) (1999, 73, 102).
King stated that we cannot forgive and say that you want nothing to do with the individual since forgiveness requires reconciliation (1963a). While we may choose to define limits of our relationship with those who we have forgiven, we must acknowledge that there is a relationship-a shared interconnected link of humanity. To want nothing to do with someone is to deny the existence of a relationship. As the Dalai Lama states, while we may choose not to associate with an individual who has harmed us, we must have compassion for him or her since we are all interconnected (199). This most basic reconciliation is of our humanity.

Thus, the short passage presented from King’s sermon, Love Your Enemies, is important to the subject of forgiveness. The statement summarizes the complex process of forgiveness. This passage is a useful guide in moving through the forgiveness process.

My “Ah Ha” Moment: Pain Does Not Vanish

When I began my studies on forgiveness, I believed that it would vanquish the psychological and emotional pains caused by past transgressions; whether I was the agent or the recipient of the acts. However, I discovered that I cannot vanquish the pain of the past through forgiveness, no more than I could alter the past. Forgiveness does, however, provide a path forward through the pain. The pain is a part of my experience, which to some degree has shaped me. Notwithstanding this, while I am informed by the past, I have the power to choose how I react to the past and live life in the present moment. These discoveries about the nature of pain in relation to forgiveness has been an insightful “ah ha” moment for me.

At the onset of the course, I hoped to work through one event. When I was five, I experienced a home invasion. My family had moved to the city while my father was stationed at a U.S. Army base in Germany. Weeks after moving, I was awakened from sleep by the sounds of a struggle. My brother, who was older and wiser than I was, placed his hand over my mouth. He then dragged me under our bed. He whispered to me that people were in the apartment.

I was so scared that I felt frozen. The noise went on for what seemed to be forever. Then the noise changed; I heard the sound of my mother’s voice. At first she sounded confused; then she sounded angry; and then she sounded terrified. The noise was coming from the kitchen, which was only separated from my bedroom by the living room. It was close. I could tell, from the sounds, that there was a physical fight going on between my mother and a man.

When I could no longer stand to hear the sound of my mother’s cries, I started to crawl out from under the bed. My brother tried to hold me back, but I fought free from his grips. Once I was out from under the bed, I moved slowly through the dark. I walked out into the living room. At the end of the room was the threshold of the kitchen. I was so terrified that I shook uncontrollably until it was difficult to walk. I remember thinking about running back into my bedroom, and hiding under the bed, every time I hear more noise. But the sound of my mother encouraged me to continue forward one small step at a time.

The kitchen was black, although there was thin strips of light, from the outside, slicing through the darkness from the blinds. I could not make out people in the kitchen; however, I could distinguish between silhouettes and shadowy figures. A man pinned my mother up against a washing machine. He held a knife to her side. There was another voice in the apartment as well. On the other side of the room, opposite me, was the doorway to my mother’s bedroom. There was a man in her room. I cannot recall the name that the man was calling out, but it was a woman’s name. The men seemed to have thought that someone else lived in the apartment.

A strange thing happened at that moment. I became overwhelmed with rage; it was an emotion that was so powerful, and so instinctive or primitive, that it over powered my fear and terror. It was liberating in a way, now that I reflect on it; I was transformed from a terrified helpless soul into an emboldened fearless character. I felt powerful and enabled. My stomach felt weak but I felt strong; I could taste a bitter-sweet taste as my mouth went dry. I would come to know this physical state many times in my life, and each time it was first triggered by fear.

Emboldened with rage, I ran at the man who pinned my mother to the washing machine. I stood about waist high to the man. I began hitting and biting the man like a wild animal. The man punched me with a side swipe, which landed on the side of my head. With the blow, I saw a white light, similar to a camera’s flash. I did not feel any pain. I think that the blow almost knocked me out. I believe this because it took a few seconds for me to remember where I was and what I was doing. When the blow landed, I was taken off of my feet and I fell into the window, ripping down the blinds as I fell to the floor. The force of my impact on the window popped out the screen. The memory gets foggy after that. The light from the outside brightened the kitchen.
When the man hit me, my mother began to slap and push the man. As I was getting up off the floor, the man stabbed my mother on her side. She screamed so loud that it hurt my ears, and she pushed him hard. He lost his balance and stumbled backwards. He slammed into the wall on the other side of the kitchen; he screamed as the iron hooks of a key holder, mounted on the wall, sank into his back; he slid down the wall. He attempted to get up but he stopped. The man in my mother’s room ran out. He went to the man on the floor and helped him to his feet. They ran out the front door next to the where the man had fell without looking at my mother or me.

My mother sat on the floor, her nightgown torn and blooded. The floor under my feet was sticky from her blood. My brother came into the kitchen, and my mother, still sobbing, told him to get my grandmother. I stood there and she wept.

My mother survived. I survived. But I was changed. I was full of the most horrible rage and hatred that the heart can produce. I relived that night many times in my dreams. I relived those emotions when I found myself feeling physically threatened. I was full of anxiety, and often over reacted to what I perceived as a physical threat. This, in part, led to my incarceration at the age of sixteen with a prison sentence of eighteen to twenty years.

I spent many years forgiving the men who broke into the apartment. This had helped relieve the rage and hatred. I do not wish the men harm, neither do I require any comfort of closure from them in the form of answers, such as why? I do not care why. They are human, and all humans do foolish things differing in degree and circumstances.

In closing, forgiveness has not vanished or ended the pain of the memory of the home invasion. Although, it has dulled it. It is helping me to move on through the pain. It is helping me reorientate the pain as a past event, not a present moment. This offered me some control over it. As King, Tutu, and the Dalai Lama stated, forgiveness is not forgetting. This is true for the pain as well as the memory. There can be some peace in this acceptance.

Works Cited

King, Jr., Martin Luther. Strength to Love. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981.

Lama, Dalai. Ethics for the New Millennium. New York: Riverhead Books, 1999.

Tutu, Desmond, Mpilo No Future Without Forgiveness. New York: Image Book/Doubleday/Random House.