I forgive you. I forgive you for whatever you may have done,

Sit or lie in a comfortable position, staying as still as possible. Take two or three 

deep breaths, and then just breathe naturally. Bring into awareness the 

particular person toward whom you feel resentment. Feel for a moment what 

arises with even the thought of forgiveness. How much longer do you wish to 

keep your heart closed to this person, and consequently to life as a whole? If 

you had just a few days to live, would you want to continue feeling resentful and 

bitter? Now remember the situation that sparked your resentment. Feel 

whatever arises. Don't try to do anything - just experience the feeling in your 

body. Experience how much you don't want to forgive this person. Experience 

the degree of unwillingness to even bring this person into your meditation. Bring 

a non-judgemental awareness to the sensations of resistance. How does it feel, 

in your body, to push this person away? Allowing the resistance to just be, let 

the container of awareness widen around it. Now bring to awareness sensory 

phenomena from outside the body: hear the sounds, feel the air temperature. 

Feel how the texture of the resistance changes as a sense of spaciousness 

surrounds it. Begin breathing into the heart area. Feel the texture of the heart. 

Now try to bring awareness of this person closer to you being. Breathing into 

the heart-space, bring their presence, via the in-breath, into the heart. On the 

out-breath, just breathe out - not trying to do anything special. Without self judgment, experience all of the arising emotions. Is there anger, resentment, 

bitterness? Is there fear or grief? Asking: “what is this?” Notice whatever 

arises, and then experience it in the body. When you get lost in thoughts, 

memories or justifications, come back via the breath into the heart-space, to the 

sensations in your body. How does it actually feel? Asking: "What is this?" - feel 

it. Stay with the awareness of your bodily emotional reactions. Stay with them 

as long as it takes to be able to reside in them, painful as they may be, without 

having to push them away. Stay here. Breathe. Hear the sounds outside. Hear 

the sounds in the room. Feel the air around you. Breathe. Reside here. Return 

to your visualisation of the person you wish to forgive. Draw their presence, via 

the in-breath, even deeper into the heart-space. As you feel the in-breath, say 

their name. Then say these words: 

I forgive you. I forgive you for whatever you may have done, whether 

intentional or unintentional, from which I experienced pain. I forgive you, 

because I know that what you did came from your own pain.