At a SGI group meeting, the young woman who was the MC dimmed the lights and said softly: "Tonight we are going to do something a little different."

"I want all of you to close your eyes and relax."

"I want you to go back to a time of personal anguish."

"Are you there?"

"Now I want you to return to that place as an enlightened being."

"What would you have done differently?"

"Take a few moments and we will discuss."

I went back to one of the most brutal beatings that I ever had as a child:

We were visiting our cousins. A old neighbor lady accused one of the cousins and someone that he was with of climbing her cherry tree, eating her cherries and when she told them to get down, the cousin's friend sassed her.

I was not the person who sassed the old lady, but I was the kind of kid that would climb a tree, eat cherries, and sass old ladies.

When my cousin's parents confronted my cousin, he lied about it. (This was standard procedure.) They beat him until he admitted it (also standard procedure.) When they asked him who the other kid was, he named me. If he would have told who it really was, he would have gotten a beating from the other kid daily after the other kid got his beating from his parents.

So my parents were compelled to beat a confession out of me. The only problem was, I didn't do it. The beating was brutal. I knew all I had to do was to confess to something that I didn't do for it to stop. But I am stubborn, (especially when I think I am right) so I took the beating.

At some point, the parents used what had always been their trump card. They said that they were going to take me down to the police station and put me on a lie detector. This tactic had always worked in the past, but this time I knew that I would be vindicated. This is how I found out the whole lie detector thing was just a bluff and they could never use that threat against me again.

Now I return to this experience as a Thus Come One:

Instead of proclaiming my guilt or innocence, I ask if I can apologize to the woman. The parents would have loved that. The moment that the woman sees me, she would say: "That's not him." 

"No sin will remain unforgiven, all good fortune will be bestowed, and all righteousness proven." (Nichikan Shonin)

I felt healed by returning as a Buddha to my own past.