Repentance - The Way to Become Sainted

          Dear Friends in Dharma,

            If you have ever joined the retreat at our center, you have seen that in the opening service of every retreat, all practitioners gather before the Buddha’s altar to perform the ceremony of Repentance—an important ceremony through which each practitioner can purify the individual karma (unwholesome deeds) of body, speech, and mind. Traditionally, in Buddhist monasteries or temples, the ceremony of Repentance is performed once every half month, particularly before every ordination ceremony in which the practitioners vow to take five or ten precepts. In reality, the ritual of Repentance is particularly significant throughout the process of your spiritual practice; it is not just a simple religious ritual. In the Buddhist disciplines, the rite of Repentance may be performed in various manners, depending on the specific case and situation. The discussion below will introduce to you the basic meanings of repentance in Buddhism as an important part in the journey of your spiritual practice.

            1. Definition of Repentance:

“Repentance” in the original Sanskrit form is Ksamayati, translated into the English as repentance and remorse; the Chinese translation is 懺 悔. Basically, Ksamayati includes two crucial parts: (i) repentance (懺)—to feel regret or contrition for a past sin or guiltiness—and (ii) remorse (悔)—to be gnawed at, distressed by, or suffering from the sense of guilt for the past wrongs and promise oneself not to commit such wrongs again. Ethically, we can briefly say that repentance is an awareness of and suffering from guilt that causes us to earnestly turn from a guilty action and sincerely commit ourselves to the amendment of our life. Therefore, an honest repentance occurs when we create a sin or moral shortcoming and become aware of and suffer from that sin; from that guilty conscience (our sense of guilt), we promise ourselves not to commit that sin again. Thus is the basic meaning of repentance.

However, when we perform the ceremony of Repentance, either in public service or in our personal place, we must honestly and sincerely face the Triple Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha) and confess your sins. With a true heart and respectful attitude in our repenting, our own three karmas—body, speech, and mind—will gradually become pure after having repented. The level of purification depends on our sincerity; the more profound our sincerity is, the more ease we will experience, regardless of whether we repent in front of the Triple Jewels or facing our own conscience and right in our bedroom.

The Buddha taught us that two kinds of noble persons are found in the world: holy persons, who never commit any wrongdoing—even simple mistakes—and live a sainted life of noble ethics, and those who are aware of or suffering from sin and sincerely commit to the amendment of their life through repentance and remorse. The truth is, as an ordinary person, how can we avoid a wrongdoing, mistake, or guiltiness, either intentionally or unintentionally? Thus, repentance and remorse, to certain extent, are the noble qualities in human existence that will help us improve our lives in both a humanistic perspective and spirituality.

Here, the concept of sin in Buddhist teachings is observed in detail through the three domains of a person: body, speech, and mind—in other words, the physical, verbal, and mental. The body has three karmas: (i) killing and doing harm to sentient beings, (ii) taking what is not given, and (iii) demonstrating sexual misconduct—being disloyal to one’s spouse and/or breaking the matrimonial happiness of others (adultery). The verbal (speech) has four karmas: (i) lying with the intention to do harm to oneself or others, (ii) speaking with a double tongue, (iii) using hateful speech, and (iv) dissembling speech that is untruthfully silken and flowery. The mind has three karmas: craving, hatred, and false view. Taken together, these are the ten karmas to which we often commit.

Of these ten karmas, clearly the concept of sin in Buddhism refers not just to a bad behavior or misconduct, but also to the mind as the cause that leads to certain kinds of sins or guilt. For instance, in the common sense of social convention, an individual is not convicted by the laws until evidence exists to demonstrate that person’s misconduct or evil behaviors. Only through evidence is one found guilty. However, in Buddhist teachings, the sense of guilt or sin is determined not only by evidence, but also by the volition deeply embedded in the mind, which is the inner core of all kinds of sin. For example, although an individual may not have actually conducted a crime or a sinful action—stealing, for example—that person commits a sin at that exact moment in which he or she volitionally generates the greedy idea to take the property of others illegally, though that greedy thought remains in its period of generation. For this reason, an often-read verse in the ceremony of Repentance says that:

Sins come from the mind, so use the mind to purify the sins,

When the mind is pure, the root of sins is exterminated;

Achieving the state of emptiness of both the mind and sins,

That is the real sense of true repentance.

As already mentioned, the purpose of repentance in our journey of spiritual practice is to purify the three karmas—namely, the body, speech, and mind The following discussion will help you further understand the meaning of purification of mind and body by practicing the rite of Repentance.

2. Your Own True Person

To a certain extent, each of us has at least three different embodiments: the physical person, the person of name, and the true person. The physical person is the one who can be touched physically through the direct contacts of sense organs. This is the person of bone and flesh who is nurtured with food and raised in educated environments such as family, schools, and society. The person of name is the one who, if unable to be contacted directly, can be known through a name as provided on the personal ID card, pen name, or nickname. The person of name can also be known through the media or the remained heritage. For example, what we know of the Saint Gandhi’s life is not through his real person, but from his remained heritages because we do not live in the same period of time with him, or we may know him only through the media, books, magazines, etc. However, in regards to the true person—namely, the real person of our own existence who is the one only we ourselves know—no other person in the world can truly recognize our own true person, except ourselves. Indeed, what we embrace, desire, think of, or dream about is known only to ourselves. Yet our question here is whether any relationship exists between these three personal embodiments and repentance? Yes. When we penetrate deeply into a sincere repentance, we actually return to our own true person—a truly honest person who transcends all boundaries of name and form.

Reality tells us that each person is always connected to a name—doctor, teacher, engineer, farmer, worker, laborer, etc. In society, a person of higher class usually has a bigger name. Yet we should note that the name of a person simply reflects a certain part of the entirety of that person. The name or label of each person often relates to the career of a person; it does not fully reflect what that person really is. Thus, some poor persons who do not have a high position in society or a big name always live with the four sublime states of the mind: loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. Meanwhile, some rich persons who live in a high class and have a big reputation do unwholesome things associated with ambition, avariciousness, or jealousy and are attached to false views. For this reason, repentance is also known as an equal practice applied to everyone, no matter of who we are. Truly, repentance in equality (without attaching it to the obstruction of name or form) is a noble way of helping those who really want to amend their mistakes and improve their status of life earnestly, regardless of race, age, sex, or color. Consequently, each time we honestly repent, we have a chance to get in touch with our own true person. When we look deeply into our true person, we recognize that the person we really are is not what people call us by name and form; however, it is so weak in facing lures of desire, it is the pitiful person of constant worry and anxiety and, most importantly, it is the sincere person capable of any earnest improvement. Only in true repentance can we transform our earthly life of weakness and sin into the noble life of sainthood.

            3. The Sinful Complex

Who is, as a human being in the world, totally free of sin? Raising such a question allows us to see that sin or guilt is actually not dreadful and blameworthy; what is truly dreadful is when an individual has lost his or her consciousness of sin—namely, when a person is no longer aware of any notion of sin in his or her life. Accordingly, no chance of education or improvement can be applied to such a person. As a matter of fact, no saint did not in reality have a sinful past, and no sinful person will never have a better future. In the birthday celebration of the Sakya Muni Buddha, we often hear a saying that describes the past life of the Buddha himself: “A sentient being in the Avici hell originally generated his virtuous mind.” That is to say, the Buddha himself, in innumerable lives of the past, used to be a sentient being in the Avici hell. There, the first time in his spiritual journey to enlightenment, he generated his virtuous mind and continued his spiritual practice through innumerable lives until the date he became a Buddha, an Enlightened One. The Jātaka collection of the stories of the Buddha’s former births also tells us the stories in which the Buddha used to be compassionate animals, such as a lion or elephant, helping other sentient beings in the animal kingdom. Although we may understand these stories in various manners, such as legends, myths, or metaphors, their essential meanings emphasize the process through which a sentient being transforms his or her sins and cultivates virtuous deeds. Thus, so long as we are aware of sin as well as earnestly and remorsefully repent whatever wrong, mistake, or guilt we have committed, we are able to transform our life through the practice of repentance. In the reality of the mind-stream, repentance would never be too late, except when we have lost our own conscience.

However, two great obstructions usually prevent us from practicing repentance sincerely and earnestly: the superiority complex and the inferiority complex. Both complexes are considered sinful. In regards to the superiority complex, we may assume that we have done nothing wrong; therefore, why should we repent and to whom should we make repentance? Such a way of thinking is really poor and pitiful! Consider for a moment that, to exist as what we are today, we indeed have received the gratitude, favors, and graces from numerous people—parents, brothers and sisters, teachers, friends, family, society, the nation, etc. While receiving gratitude from them, what have we done to them? Truly, we always receive more than what we give. Furthermore, how much worry, sadness, and distress have we created for our parents or loved ones around us, particularly during childhood, sickness, and foolishness or in outbursts of hatred, anger, haughtiness, craving, envy, revenge, etc.? Just count how many times you have lied in order to benefit yourself. How many times did you do harm to others either intentionally or unintentionally? How many times did the hidden volition of guilt arise in your mind? How many times did you get angry or fight with others and how did your anger impact others as well as your own person?

The more we meditate on such practical matters of life, the more we realize our own true person. Therefore, whenever an ordinary person assumes that he or she does nothing wrong and questions the need to repent, he or she becomes an abnormal person! This thought of ignorance of repentance is really dangerous to our life, both present and future, because embracing such a thought leads us to actually cut off the chance to amend and transform any imperfections, mistakes, foolishness, or guilt during our transformation and purification.

Opposite of this superiority complex is the inferiority complex. With the inferiority complex, we may think that we are too sinful to repent; perhaps we really want to repent, but the obsessions of sins are so weighty that they repress all the enlightened ideas in our mind and imprison us in the darkness of sinful sufferings. Because of such obsessions and thinking, we find a way to escape from people, live an isolated life, often cry silently, and even think of a way to end our life as soon as possible. It gets worse! This complex not only pulls us back to the passive and pessimistic life, but it also destroys all abilities of our transformation or improvement and even forces us completely toward an entrusted and reckless life.

The nature of the sinful complex in both cases—superiority and inferiority—is that we do not understand the principle of non-self and impermanent essence of life; the essence of both complexes arise from the concept of “I,” “mine,” and “my self.” So long as we are still immersed in the haughtiness of our own self or ego, we cannot honestly repent with all our heart! Thus, we should remember that the self is always the very fountainhead of all sins; it is also the real motivation that forces us to hide our own sins in one way or another. To resolve this problem, we should keep in mind the repentant verse:

Achieving the state of emptiness of both the mind and sins,

That is the real sense of true repentance.

4. The Self and Sin

One may ask why “achieving the state of emptiness of both the mind and sins is the real sense of true repentance?” Here, “emptiness of sin” means that, through the process of earnest repenting, we can purify our mind in an ethical way of both repentance and cultivation of virtuous deeds simultaneously in order to compensate for whatever sin or guilt we have committed in life. In this way of repentance, we actually cleanse the impure substances (sins) in the mind—that is to say, the mind that contains all sins now becomes empty. Furthermore, “emptiness of the mind” means that, once we reach the state of absolute purity, all dharmas (conditional things) that appear in the relationship of cause and effect—and particularly the notion of self (“I,” “mine,” and “my self”)—will become ineffective and no longer disturb our true life. Since the nature of all things is non-self, both the mind and sin are empty by nature; what we call sin or self in fact exists in the state of conditions only. Therefore, when we purify our own life in such a manner of repenting, we actually reach the state of true repentance—the state in which both the mind and sin become tranquil and pure like space. Of course, to obtain such a target, the crucial task facing us in the beginning as well as end of this path of purification is to exterminate the notion of self, self-pride, and self-love and its foundation deeply rooted in craving and attachment. Until sins no longer exist, remorse no longer exists—even the idea of remorse no longer exists—our mind would not reach the true state of flawlessness and non-purity, completely and absolutely. At this point we attain true repentance. Clearly, when we reach the state of true repentance, we obtain the realm of true happiness because both realms carry the same characters of purity and freedom from all delusions, which are in fact the essence of Nirvāna.

In reality, however, although we have already repented all the sins we created sincerely and honestly, the idea of repentance or that of remorse still tightly attaches to the root of self; thus, we must still bear the suffering in mind—not because of sin, but because of the consciousness of remorse that constantly runs in the reality of our mind-stream. For instance, every time we remember a certain sin from our past, we again suffer and deplore ourselves. For this reason, after having repented sincerely, we need to spend more time for mindfulness on the truths, such as “non-self,” “impermanence,” and “dependent origination” in our own life as well as our own existence; simultaneously, we also need to cultivate the pāramita (transcendental) virtues—namely, to practice a life of virtue, such as charity or public service, with the mind of non-discrimination, non-attachment, and non-condition.

In summary, the rite of Repentance in equality is one of the essential steps on the journey of our spiritual practice. Truly, repentance in equality is the practical way for us to transform our guilty life into the life of nobility through purification of the three karmas. In other words, repentance is the only way to make our impure life become sainted and noble; this is, again, the real way to make our profane life become significant and valuable. For this reason, the Buddhist teachings include various performances of repentance, helping us transform our own unwholesome karmas that have been collected from innumerable lives in the past up to the present. A few popular manners of repentance commonly practiced in the Buddhist communities are respectfully bowing to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas while chanting their noble names with the one-pointed mind or confessing and repenting in the witness of pure Sangha (virtuous monks or nuns), in front of the Triple Jewels, or facing our own conscience. We also need to practice meditation or mindfulness of Dharma, cultivate the transcendental virtues, and practice the moral and virtuous life through such means as charity, public service, and help for others. May you achieve true repentance! May you live in true happiness!