The 11th century renowned Tibetan teacher, Milarepa said,

“My religion is to live and die without regret.”

Let me tell you a little about Milarepa….

Milarepa was born in Tibet to a prosperous family. He was named Milarepa, which means "A joy to hear". But when his father died Milarepa's uncle and aunt took all the family's wealth. At his mother's request Milarepa left home and studied sorcery. While his aunt and uncle were having a party to celebrate the impending marriage of their son, he took his revenge by causing the house they were in to collapse, killing 35 people, although the uncle and aunt are supposed to have survived. The villagers were angry and set off to look for Milarepa, but his mother got word to him, and he sent a hailstorm to destroy their crops.

Knowing that his revenge was wrong, Milarepa set out to find a teacher and was led to Marpa the translator. Marpa proved a hard task master, and before he would teach him had Milarepa build and then demolish three houses in turn. When Marpa still refused to teach Milarepa he went to Marpa's wife, who took pity on him. She forged a letter of introduction to another teacher, Lama Ngogdun Chudor, under whose tutelage he began to practice meditation. However when he was making no progress, he confessed the forgery and Ngogdun Chudor said that it was vain to hope for spiritual growth without the guru's approval. Milarepa returned to Marpa, and after practicing very diligently for twelve years Milarepa attained the state of vajradhara (complete enlightenment).

So, you can imagine that Milarepa must have had much that he regretted in his life. After all he killed quite a few people.

How often do you feel regret through the actions of your body, speech or mind? How often do you send an angry e-mail, only later to regret having pressed that “send button?” How often to you speak angry words to a loved one or a co-worker, only later to regret what you have said?

Regret can serve a temporarily good purpose – it is a form of guilt and let’s you know you are a caring person with a conscience. From the Buddhist perspective regret or guilt really serves no other useful purpose. What is most important is to live in the here and now – the present moment – which means to act in kind compassionate ways – so we don’t have regret.

I think if we have harmed someone in the past, that we should try our best to make amends, if all possible. If it is not possible to make amends, then at the very least we should apologize. This is taught in the 12 step program and I think only makes sense.

I remember many many years ago, saying some unkind things to someone in an international organization. I had completely forgotten about the incident until a few years ago when I saw this person at a convention – neither of us spoke. It brought back to me the time I was unkind to this person. I remember wanting to apologize but I was too embarrassed after all of these years. So shortly after the convention I was able to get his address and wrote him the most sincere letter of apology I could possibly write. I never heard from him, but at least I felt I did what I could. After that I had to let it go.

In order to live and die without regret, we must first make amends – whenever possible, and then let it go. Sometimes it is difficult to forgive ourselves. One of the inmates at Lansing Prison, where I volunteer, can’t forgive himself for a rape he committed many many years ago. What he did was a horrible thing. But despite years of doing good works, of doing spiritual practice, and helping others he continues to beat himself up. He just can’t forgive himself.

And regret isn’t always about something we did, but it can also be about something we failed to do. For example, it might be because we didn’t get a college degree that we had desired (or our parents expected). Or maybe we failed to care for our parents before they died. Or perhaps we wish we had worked harder at a failed relationship. Or it could be a thousand other regrets about things we failed to do.

Forgiving ourselves is the first step, because carrying around guilt serves no useful purpose. To resolve that kind of guilt there are two things we must do. First, is to use the experience (whatever it is) as the basis for our spiritual practice. We must vow never to do this thing again, and to have real compassion for both all of the victims of this particular kind of abuse and also compassion for all of the abusers – because they also deserve our compassion.

The second thing you can do is forgive ourselves and this is where tonglen meditation can be very useful. We can do tonglen meditation practice even for ourselves. Through tonglen meditation we can heal ourselves from our past misdeeds. Healing is always possible.

The final step is to stop responding in angry and hurtful ways to others – that cause of regret.

This kind of behavior is the result of acting upon the afflictive or negative emotions of anger, greed, or jealousy. This is accomplished through spiritual practice – through meditation practice.

So, to summarize; to live and die without regret,the first step is by making amends for our past bad actions, and if that is not possible, then to apologize. The second step is to avoid harming others through body, speech, or mind. Again through spiritual practice we can stop these actions that cause regret.

If we do these things then it is possible to truly live and die without regret.