Why Buddhism Rarely Says "Forgiveness" and Why It Matters

Before any teaching begins, the room has already moved through a ritual of asking and receiving. The audience repeats the three refuges line by line, to the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha, three times over, then the five training rules, then the recollections of the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha in English, and finally the Metta Sutta, the old discourse on loving-kindness. Only then does Ajahn Nissarano, the Australian monk who ordained under Ajahn Brahm twenty-two years ago and now serves as senior monastic at Newbury Buddhist Monastery, take up the subject. It is a warm October morning in Melbourne, he remarks, and summer seems to have arrived. His topic is forgiveness, and he opens with a claim that many listeners will not expect: if you read the sutras, the word hardly appears at all. This live Dhamma talk, published by the BSV Dhamma Talks channel on 18 October 2026, is an unhurried exploration of that puzzle, and of the practical question underneath it: how does a person actually let go of hurt, starting with themselves?

Is forgiveness really a Buddhist idea at all?

The talk begins with a question he was asked directly. If the Buddha seldom used the word forgiveness in the sutras, is the concept part of Buddhist teaching? Ajahn Nissarano's answer is an emphatic yes, and he locates the evidence in monastic life rather than in the discourses. The monks' rules, the Vinaya, contain a great deal on the subject. Anyone who has heard the chanting knows that monks ask forgiveness of one another when they part, for anything done through body, speech or mind that offended or hurt the other person, whether it was intended or not. Traditional Buddhist countries have a long custom of this practice too.

He recalls an exchange in Sri Lanka, years earlier. Someone told him that forgiveness was not part of Buddhism and was really a Christian idea, a view he says many people hold. His reply was simple: "No, no, it isn't. It's in Buddhism." He also points to a chant in which practitioners ask forgiveness of the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, which he describes as a very common one. The concept, in other words, is present everywhere in the practice. What is absent is the word as a headline doctrine in the discourses.

Why would the Buddha avoid the word forgiveness?

He begins to offer his explanation, though the portion of the talk available for this article breaks off before he finishes it. The line of thought seems to be that the Buddha was addressing something deeper than a transaction in which one person pardons another. The useful distinction for a listener is between forgiveness as a verdict handed from one person to another and the inner release that makes the verdict almost beside the point.

He anchors this in a verse he recites and asks the audience to name. It runs: "Hatred never ends through hatred, by non-hate alone does it end. This is an ancient truth." He follows it with a line about recognising our mortality: "For those who realize this, quarrels end." (18:30 in the video.) The argument is that the cycle of grievance is broken from the inside. Non-hate is not a favour granted to the offender; it is a change in the one who was carrying the hatred. Read this way, the Buddha's emphasis on ending hatred does the work that the English word forgiveness often promises, without the implication that the wronged party must first be moved by the wrongdoer's remorse.

"Usually the most important person to forgive ourselves actually, it's generally ourselves. If we can forgive ourselves, we'll probably be okay about forgiving others, it's much easier."

Ajahn Nissarano, live Dhamma talk, BSV Dhamma Talks, 18 October 2026 (around 23:38)

Why start with forgiving yourself?

This is the hinge of the talk, and it is the least intuitive move he makes. Most people assume that forgiveness is a gift we extend to others, and that our own failings are a separate matter. Ajahn Nissarano reverses the order. In his telling, the self is the first and most common place where resentment settles. We are hard on ourselves for not being perfect, and that harshness colours how we meet everyone else.

The logic is worth spelling out for anyone who has tried to forgive a colleague, a parent or an ex-partner while still replaying their own mistakes. If the inner voice keeps a ledger of your faults, you have no spare generosity for someone else's. Forgiving yourself does not mean excusing what you did. It means refusing to make your own wrongdoing the permanent centre of your mind. Once that ledger loosens, the offences of others can be seen as events rather than as an identity you must keep defending. This is why he says the work of forgiveness is easier after it has been practised on oneself.

What does the talk say about distorted perception?

Around the 36-minute mark he reaches for a Pali term, vipallasa, and frames it around the power that certain perceptions have over us. He stresses the way our minds build a picture of other people from what they say and do, then mistake that picture for the person. The excerpt available here gives only the setup, not his full definition, so it would be unwise to claim more than that. But the direction is clear, and it connects to the rest of the talk. A grudge is rarely a simple response to a single act. It is a perception that keeps being reinforced, and it is that perception, more than the original hurt, that needs examining.

This is also where his remarks on understanding the other person's state of mind come in. He asks listeners to consider what was happening inside someone who caused harm, and he suggests that we rarely see this from the inside. The point is not to excuse behaviour but to loosen the rigidity with which we hold the story.

How does reflection turn into forgiveness?

Later in the talk, around 70 minutes in, he describes the power of reflection as a practice. Reflection, as he uses the idea, is the deliberate looking at a hurt in order to see it clearly rather than to keep feeding it. The sequence he sketches moves from acknowledging what happened, through a shift in how we hold it, toward a letting go. The transcript preserves fragments of this argument, including his remark that the Buddha's teaching is fundamentally about how the mind relates to experience, rather than about moral bookkeeping between people.

That reframing answers the opening question. If forgiveness were only a social act, the suttas would need a word for it. Because the Buddha's concern is the mind that suffers, the teaching works on the mind's habits, and forgiveness appears as a consequence of seeing those habits clearly. The talk also touches on the mental quality of joy in other people's good qualities, which appears in the same stretch of teaching, around 21 minutes in. Taken together, these suggest a picture in which generosity toward others and freedom from grievance grow from the same root.

What is the practical instruction for a listener?

Ajahn Nissarano keeps returning to the difference between direct and indirect forgiveness. Monks ask forgiveness person to person, face to face, and he emphasises the directness of that encounter. His point is that real forgiveness does not go through a third party, a ritual formula or a general announcement. It happens between the people involved, or, when that is impossible, within one's own mind.

He stresses doing it directly, person to person, and reflecting on the state of mind of the person who caused harm.

Paraphrase of the talk's middle section, Ajahn Nissarano, BSV Dhamma Talks, 18 October 2026 (around 47:49)

For a listener, this translates into a simple sequence. Notice the hurt without rehearsing it. Look at your own part in the story, without self-punishment. Consider the state of mind behind the other person's words or actions, without assuming you know all of it. Then let the grip loosen, even partially. None of these steps requires agreement from the person who hurt you, which is precisely why the Buddhist framing is so practical.

What is worth watching in the full talk?

The full recording runs about an hour and twenty-seven minutes, and this article draws on its opening and several timestamped sections rather than every minute. The closing stretch includes an announcement about an upcoming retreat, which the transcript records as running from 30 October to 4 November (around 85:15). For listeners who want the full argument, the complete talk is the best source, and the sections on reflection and on self-forgiveness repay repeated listening.

Where to go from here

Start by listening to the talk's opening verse at about 18 minutes, then return to the Metta Sutta chant at the beginning, which frames the whole teaching in loving-kindness. Next, try the sequence described above on a single, small grievance: acknowledge it, look at your own contribution, consider the other person's state of mind, and notice what loosens. If you want to practise with others, BSV describes its East Malvern centre in Melbourne as hosting meditation programs for members and for children, teenagers and adults, and its channel carries further Dhamma talks. Most of all, take Ajahn Nissarano's first advice seriously: begin with yourself.