Alan Watts on Forgiveness

Alan Watts discusses forgiveness not merely as a moral obligation but as an essential act of self-liberation and a recognition of reality. His teaching focuses on achieving freedom by understanding the roots of both one's own mistakes and the harmful actions of others.

Forgiveness of Self: Letting Go of the Past

Watts emphasizes that forgiveness must begin with the self, viewing self-condemnation as "dead weight" that chains you to a past that no longer exists.

• Doing Your Best: You must recognize that you were always "doing your best" at the time, given the consciousness and understanding available.
• The Flaw of Present Judgment: Condemning your past self is like "scolding a child for not knowing calculus." Your earlier self simply lacked the awareness you now hold.
• Mistakes as Learning: Errors are not "crimes against existence" but necessary steps in learning how to walk and "experiments in being alive." Learning is described as "fumbling" and falling down, which is "how the game works."
• Condemnation as Dead Weight: Carrying mistakes is like dragging "stones in a sack." To punish yourself is to argue with what is already finished.
• The Step to Freedom: Self-compassion is the decision to "let those stones fall," recognizing that you are now the one who learned, not the one who stumbled. This is the first step into freedom.

Forgiveness of Others: Empathy and Understanding Pain

The principles applied to self-forgiveness extend directly to forgiving others. Watts describes judgment as quick and effortless, while true forgiveness requires a deeper intelligence.

• Actions Stem from Limitation and Suffering: A person acts wrongly not by choosing from infinite clarity, but from the limits of their own awareness, shaped by conditioning, wounds, and the "soil of their upbringing."
• The Highest Intelligence is Empathy: Understanding another human being requires pausing, thinking, and feeling—the "highest kind of intelligence." Empathy allows one to see the other's confusion as the same confusion you once carried.
• The Chain of Causation: Cruel people "arrive there through a web of influences" stretching back further than they can trace. To grasp this chain of causes dissolves the "easy satisfaction of judgment."
• Suffering Beneath the Mask: Condemning someone is forgetting they are "already living inside their own punishment." Forgiveness means seeing the suffering human being, or the child, beneath the harmful behavior.

Forgiveness as Breaking the Cycle of Hurt

Watts views forgiveness as a highly practical and self-serving act that halts the reproduction of pain.

• Refusing to Play the Game: Forgiveness is the "refusal to play that game" of retaliation and bitterness. It is the decision not to pass along the poison that was handed to you.
• Reclaiming Freedom: Keeping hatred alive means that "resentment burns only the one who holds it." Forgiveness is how you reclaim your freedom from the endless repetition of hurt and become the "break in the chain."
• Clarity, Not Weakness: Forgiveness is not weakness or indulgence; it is clarity—the ability to see that holding on chains you to the very thing you long to be free of.

Forgiveness as Recognition of Unity

At the deepest level, forgiveness transcends morality, flowing naturally from realizing the unity of existence.

• Natural Flow: When the vision of unity is clear, forgiveness ceases to be an effort; it flows "as naturally as breathing."
• The Outcome: Forgiveness doesn't erase the past, but it "releases its grip." When you stop demanding perfection, you discover a freedom that is "lighter than judgment" and allows life to "keep flowing."

Why Should We Practice Self-Compassion?

Practicing self-compassion (self-forgiveness) is an essential step toward personal freedom and continued growth.

1. To Recognize You Were Always Doing Your Best

Self-compassion allows for the crucial recognition that at the time of any past mistake, you were always "doing your best" given your awareness. To condemn that self is like "scolding a child for not knowing calculus," forgetting that mistakes are simply "a step in learning how to walk" and an "experiment in being alive."

2. To Liberate Yourself from Dead Weight and the Past

The primary motivation is self-liberation. Self-condemnation is "dead weight" that chains you to a past self that "no longer exists." You carry mistakes "like stones in a sack," and self-compassion is the decision to "let the stones fall" and "lay down the heavy sack." This marks your "first step into freedom."

3. To Differentiate Learning from Condemnation

Self-compassion enables true learning (which is alive and opens the way forward) rather than destructive self-punishment (which is dead weight). It views past actions as a necessary process of "fumbling," "error," and "falling down," which is "how the game works."

4. To Allow Life to "Keep Flowing"

Self-compassion is a practical necessity. When you stop demanding perfection, you discover a "freedom lighter than judgment" and a peace deeper than resentment. Forgiving yourself releases the past's "grip"—the "only way life can keep flowing."

The Nature of True Intelligence

Watts defines the nature of true intelligence not as logical ability or cleverness, but as a profound capacity for empathy and a deep understanding of the reality of others' suffering.

• Cleverness vs. True Intelligence: Most confuse intelligence with "cleverness" (solving puzzles, winning arguments). True intelligence is the "highest kind of intelligence," found in the heart, and is the "art of slipping into another's skin."
• Going Beyond Logic: True intelligence moves beyond mere logic, which judges actions as "right or wrong." Empathy moves past judgment to ask: "What pain gave rise to this action? What blindness shaped this choice?"
• Grasping the Chain of Causes: True intelligence grasps that cruel people "arrive there through causes, through a web of influences." This understanding "dissolves the easy satisfaction of judgment" and is liberating because once you see this chain, "you can only understand."

How Does One Begin to Forgive?

The process of forgiveness begins with self-forgiveness and then extends that understanding through empathy to others, recognizing the deeper reality behind harmful actions.

1. Start with Self-Recognition and Self-Compassion

• Acknowledge You Were Doing Your Best: Look back and recognize that at the time of the mistake, you were "doing your best" given your understanding.
• Release the Past's Grip: Recognize the past is "finished now." Stop arguing with what no longer is.
• Let Go of the Burden: Compassion for yourself means to "let the stones fall" and lay down the heavy sack. "To soften is to begin to forgive." This self-forgiveness is the "first step into freedom."

2. Extend Understanding to Others through Empathy

• See Actions as Limitations: Recognize that a person acts wrongly from the "limits of their awareness," not from perfect clarity.
• Look Beneath the Mask: Begin to "see the human being beneath the behavior," the child beneath the anger, the suffering beneath the mask.
• Seek Understanding, Not Judgment: Use the "highest kind of intelligence" (empathy) to ask: "What pain gave rise to this action?" This understanding dissolves the "easy satisfaction of judgment."

3. Refuse to Perpetuate the Cycle of Hurt

• Decide to Stop the Poison: Forgiveness is the "refusal to play that game" of resentment and retaliation. It is the decision "not to pass along what was handed to you in anger."
• Let Go for Your Own Sake: You must remember that "resentment burns only the one who holds it." Letting go "releases not only the other but yourself."

Ultimately, you move from moral judgment to deep understanding, realizing there was "never anything to forgive in the first place, only pain to be understood."