I saw the entity I had take to be “me” was really a fabrication. My true nature, I realised, was much more real, both uglier and more beautiful than I could have imagined.*
Thich Nhat Hanh

Most are inclined to judge others more harshly than we judge ourselves –
Closing down the possibility of forgiveness we need more than we know
to open our futures.

Alan Jacobs aims to deepen personal density
through “breaking bread with the dead,”
A reacquainting of ourselves with those who have passed this way before us,
Those whose idealistic though imperfect – unenlightened – lives yet may break us open
to the truth about ourselves:

If we understand that this pervasive inconsistency, this inability to transcend the interests of people who look or act or believe just like us, is universal then perhaps – just perhaps – we will be less likely to believe that we are immune to it. We will believe that nothing exempts is from the same temptation and the same frailty. And perhaps knowing that, we will be more inclined to forgive such frailty in others, just as we (most of us, anyway) forgive ourselves.**

Some do not believe they need forgiveness,
For they have done nothing wrong,
But reality is different,
And I suspect it is this ugly and beautiful reality of self that will finally open us
life-in-all-its-fullness.

*From Maria Popova’s The Marginalian: How the Great Zen Master and Peace Activist Thich Nhat Hanh Found Himself and Lost His Self in a Library Epiphany;
**From Alan Jacobs’ Breaking Bread with the Dead.