I apologise to you, once one of my closest friends. I was hurtful and callous and justified my actions to myself with a lack of understanding and self-convinced superiority. The betrayal of our friendship is a pain I have carried for many years. I did not understand your true feelings, nor mine. I am so sorry for the part I played in your grief and distress and I find it difficult to imagine being forgiven. I ask for that compassion from you, myself and from the ever-loving heart of the soul, and apologize for holding myself distant from it's bountiful goodness. Thank you to Ondrea and to Stephen, so much heart-learning, for so many years. Thank you any and all who read this.

I apologize to Riley, my faithful animal friend and companion. You held all of my secrets---self-tortuous concerns, incertitude, sheer joy in day to day moments---and right before my trip, I was too preoccupied with getting things in order that I didn't notice that you were slipping away. I sorry that I didn't hold you closer on your last days and just "be there" with you. And I also apologize to my dearest partner for keeping you for some time now at a distance and...out of my heart in so many ways. I'm sorry that I haven't loved you back in ways that you deserve and that would bring us closer. Thank you for your gentle heart.

I apologize to Riley, my faithful animal friend and companion. You held all of my secrets---self-tortuous concerns, incertitude, sheer joy in day to day moments---and right before my trip, I was too preoccupied with getting things in order that I didn't notice that you were slipping away. I sorry that I didn't hold you closer on your last days and just "be there" with you. And I also apologize to my dearest partner for keeping you for some time now at a distance and...out of my heart in so many ways. I'm sorry that I haven't loved you back in ways that you deserve and that would bring us closer. Thank you for your gentle heart.

Dad, I've neglected you so much in order to protect myself from your silence, from your fear of fatherhood. I've withdrawn to escape the pain of being near your suffering. I've never known how to talk to you. There's no sympathy or love in your life now, and still I feel helplessly tongue-tied around you; I don't know how to open my heart to the fear, the abandonment, the loss of will to live. I don't want you to think your life is over in your 50's, I want to provide you with comfort, with love, with the care that you so desperately crave and wish to offer, but feel too useless to ask for or attempt. It breaks my heart to see the death of resignation in your eyes, to think of these years I've just let you live alone for such stretches. I'm sorry that I can't seem to carry into our time together the moments when pure, unabashed love seems the only sane action. I just get all choked up. Please forgive me.

To my wife, whose wisdom and compassion still unnerve me, I'm sorry. For all of the precious moments I've spent in daydream instead of your arms, for all of the moments I'll do it again, I'm sorry. I want so badly to open to you fully, to spend these few years we have together in openness; the sight of my negligence and the foresight of my grief make me so ashamed of each wasted breath in your love. You have offered more heart than anyone in my life, and continue to patiently comfort me. I hope that I can do the same for you in our short time left together. If not, please forgive me.

I am so sorry dear god that i am confused about what to do and how to live. I am so sorry that i am unable to love myself. I am so sorry to have failed you and love and everything good and truthful.however it is that i keep failing, i am sorry.

I apologize to a venerable monk and mostly my father for not letting him answer a question about Buddhism. After he didn't answer for a while I attempted to answer the question not realizing he knew more english than I thought he did. I'm sorry to my parents for doing self-destructive things too much in the past. I ask forgiveness and send love to a special being I met breifly a few times, they will know what I'm talking about. I wish you the highest peace and us both happiness. You will be in my heart everyday in this life. I apologize to Stephen and Ondrea in advance for not watching the video about this first, if I missed something. I'll watch it though :P And a thank you to Stephen for helping your son in need, which in turn helped me in my mid teens, when I was a punk rocker, which got me into meditation.

I'm sorry, for being too quiet around other people, and feeling, thinking of rejection. (deep breaths) I just want more, silence.

Please forgive me, dearest daddy, for not getting to the hospital in time to be with you when you left your body, three months ago. The grief is searing still. Thank you for that moment on Saturday morning, two weeks ago. That was the first time I've ever heard "Scarlet Ribbons" sung (on the radio) by anyone else but you. Sending you love and peace and more love. May you be free from suffering.

Aged 22 I was walking to work in the early morning sun. I came across a seriously injured cat in the road. The injuries were severe and I doubted you were conscious but you were still breathing. I looked around for something with which to put an end to your suffering but there was nothing. There was no-one else around. I couldn't do it with my bare hands for fear of worsening your suffering. I left you and walked on to work. Even though I'm sure you must have died shortly after I apologise that I didn't do more to help you, even if that meant just staying with you. I've never forgotten. I apologise too to my childhood dog Toby. In your old age you suffered seizures and I remember the night you howled from your basket downstairs. I twice went to your side to calm you and upon returning to bed I heard you cry out a third time and I turned over in bed, conscious of an early start in the morning. You died that night. I am deeply, deeply sorry.

I'm sorry for the way I treated my learning disabled son as a baby. I was so afraid of the future for him and for me that I was not loving to him at that time when he really needed me to be. I'm sorry for the atmosphere that my youngest son grew up in. His father and I could not manage to develop a loving relationship and he was the most caught in the middle of all the tension in our home. I'm sorry for not being able to mirror for all my chidren a caring, coorperative partnership with my ex husband. I'm sorry that I just couldn't fix our relationship.

My pride has caused me to hurt others intentionally and unintentionally. Pride has caused me to fail to see how I have hurt others and even my own self. If I could take back each harm I've done I would. I am so sorry to those who have suffered at all in knowing me. So sorry.I ask for forgiveness.

I apologize to my dear friend, Charlie. You gave me life in so many ways. When you were dying, I wanted to be there for you...but it was so hard to always keep my heart open and vulnerable. I know you were scared and distressed, I saw that and I wanted to help but somehow just even trying to help made it feel like a wall between us, like I was separating into the helper and not being just there as a partner on the journey feeling the pain with you and the awe of knowing there was absolutely nothing we knew how to do to make it better..nothing to say... I felt you wanting me to sooth the fear, to say something wise and comforting, but I didn't know how to approach it. I didn't know how far you wanted to open up to me about it and how much you wanted to keep to yourself, a form of last dignity, and I was afraid to ask. I saw you so tired and sick, still just wanting to make others comfortable with your illness, still wanting to accommodate other people's needs. You were the helper, the teacher in our relationship, I was the dumb kid - although I can hear you now disputing this, you always thinking that I had some wisdom to offer...I wanted to offer you so much more on your dying bed. I'm sorry for all that I could not bear to say, or ask, or do and how in my fear, I left you emotionally alone during your transition. I'm sorry also for not taking on the responsibility of the newspaper after you left, and for arguing with the new owner/editor that you appointed one day before you died. I just couldn't accept working with anyone but you. I know this was my smallness and anger, not Tim's fault. I know it hurt the paper when I quit and I know this decision was my selfishness and laziness. I hope you know that all the work I do to help people now would not have ever come to fruition without you. I love you and miss you everyday...ten years since you died. Thank you for offering this, Ondrea, and for all you and Stephen have done for me.

when I was 12 years old, I was babysitting for an infant. I pinched her while she was sleeping. She awoke and cried. I don't know why I did this. I'm so sorry that my own pain was put onto this beautiful baby.

I wish to lovingly apologize, from a full heart and with hands to heart, to my sweet, precious, one physical body, the temple, the bearer of my spirit, for the too many years I have extended to it my harshness, disdain, sense of shame, unconsciousness and neglect, unawakenedness, lack of cherishing, lack of gratitude, and, at times, even something akin to revulsion. I am so sorry, sweet body, for the time spent, time wasted, in being unwilling to see the gift, the wonder, the ongoing, impossible miracle that you are; for failing to bless your capacity to give life, to heal, to bring pleasure and joy; to hold me upright, to give me rest, to teach me! My apology comes with an amends to love, cherish, honor, listen to, touch with loving kindness, infuse with beautiful nourishment, be taught by and bless you, as long as we both may live! And so it is.

I wish to apologize to my husband of 28 years for withholding sex.

I ask my young son to forgive me for arguing with my wife in front of him. He became sullen and quiet and I would not want him to think that his parents' frustrations had anything to do with him.

I ask forgivness to Alice for not being a good friend when she needed one.

i apologize to my parents for not being the daughter they wanted. i ask forgiveness for this. i apologize to myself for continuously trying to figure this out and trying to find out what about me is so bad or selfish, for constantly looking for the evidence of my unworthiness, my unloveableness and finding evidence for this and then putting myself out of my own heart. i apologize to myself for spending so much of my 67 years trying to figure this out, worrying about it and finding no answer yet being unable to stop this rumination.

I apologize to a playmate: when we were about 9 years - she was having a birthday, and some "friends" made a "cake" from sand and covered it with colored soapfoam and candles and gave it to her - and i remembered how we laughed when she found out we had tricked her - she looked so sad, and i remembered that i thought "better that you are sad than I" thank you for reading that, Ondrea Nina