Heart of Forgiveness: A Practical Path to Healing

Madeline Ko-i Bastis is a Buddhist chaplain. She works with cancer, AIDS, psychiatric, and Alzheimer’s patients, with battered women, caregivers, inmates, with people with addictions, as well as so-called normal people. In her work she has found that the most difficult thing for people to do is to grant forgiveness. Some people cannot ask for forgiveness, others cannot forgive one another. And some don’t realize how harsh they are to themselves when they cannot forgive the one person they have to live with daily — themselves.

Heart of Forgiveness helps readers reflect on what forgiveness really means and how it can heal their lives and relationships. Ko-i Bastis explores the difficult emotions that keep us from forgiving and offers tools to help us overcome them. The three parts of Heart of Forgiveness mirror the phrases of the Buddhist Forgiveness practice:

For all the harm I have done to others, knowingly or unknowingly, forgive me.
For all the harm others have done to me, knowingly or unknowingly, I forgive you as much as I can.
For all the harm I have done myself, knowingly or unknowingly, I forgive myself.

Each section includes stories of forgiveness, a meditation, guided imagery, and other exercises to help understand forgiveness and letting go.