REMORSE

The word came back to me in my morning meditation. It's a beautiful word, although certainly a sad one. It expresses something different from regret, which suggests--to me, at least--a continuing agency over some unskillful action in the past, as though I would do it differently if I could. There is a lingering element of guilt in the word regret. Remorse is a purer expression of feeling. It expresses the sadness of responsibility for that unskillful action, but absent the attachment. I can feel remorse without the vain wish that it were otherwise.