What Jainism says about compassion and forgiveness
Jain compassion has an unusual shape. It is less a feeling for others than a running account with them: harm noticed, forgiveness asked, forgiveness given, once a day and once a year. The concepts below include that account, the compassion underneath it, and the rule that you are also a being you are not allowed to harm. Most of these are recorded as practices rather than verses, so several carry no citation.
Compassion for All Beings
Compassion is given as the root of non-violence rather than its result. Every soul counts as equal and as on its way somewhere, whatever body it is in now.
Acharanga Sutra
Pratikramana - Asking Forgiveness
A regular review in which you ask forgiveness for harm done, including harm you did not intend. It builds the habit of assuming you caused some.
Jain Liturgy
Kshamavani - Day of Forgiveness
One day a year for asking and granting forgiveness to everyone. Both directions are required, which makes it harder than it sounds.
Forgiveness Practice
Non-Violence Toward Self
Harm turned inward breaks the same rule. Jainism prizes austerity and still treats self-hatred and extreme self-punishment as violence.
Jain Commentary
Beneficial Speech
Being accurate is not enough for speech to pass here. It should also be of use to the person hearing it, which rules out true gossip.
Speech Guidelines
Anekantavada - Many-Sidedness
Reality is many-sided, so no single statement holds all of it. Your view can be partial without being wrong, and so can someone else's.
Tattvartha Sutra
Tolerance from Truth
Tolerance is traced to that idea rather than to politeness. If truth has many sides, another tradition may be holding one of them.
Anekantavada Commentary
Respectful Relations
Seeing another person as a soul rather than as an object. The library treats this as what turns a relationship from use into mutual support.
Relationship Ethics
The Liberation of All
The long hope is that every soul eventually gets free, however many lifetimes it takes. Nobody is written off.
Universal Hope
Forgiveness here is not a mood that happens to arrive. It has a date in the calendar and a form of words, and it is asked of everyone in both directions. A tradition this careful about harm seems to need a way of setting the ledger down.