Mindfulness of the truth
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Confession as a gift
Confession is similar to apology, but is not necessarily directed to the person we’ve offended. When we’re confessing, we’re being honest with a third party (and with ourselves, of course) about who we are and what we have done. But in essence we’re standing in front of our ideals in a state of shame and honesty, admitting that we have fallen short of how we would ideally like to behave.
So it’s only possible to confess to someone who shares the same ideals we do. If, for example, you confessed that you were contemplating having an affair to someone who actively encouraged you to go ahead and be unfaithful, then that wouldn’t be very helpful for our ethical development.
We should consider ourselves very lucky indeed if there is someone to whom we can confess in this way. We can consider ourselves blessed to have someone whom we can confide in, who can keep confidences, and who shares our ethical perspective and won’t let us off the hook. That’s a real friend, and such friends are all too rare.
Giving forgiveness
We should also, in the spirit of metta, be prepared to forgive others when they apologize to us. To withhold forgiveness in order to hurt another person or out of self-righteous anger is an abuse of the other person’s honesty and ethical sensitivity. We’re hardly likely to encourage people to be honest with us if we punish them for it. Of course there may be times when we feel unable to forgive someone instantly, and that’s okay. Genuine forgiveness may take time, and false forgiveness is not a virtue. But we should not withhold forgiveness out of anger or mean-spiritedness. We should give forgiveness as freely as we are able.
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