The Merit and Benefits of True Repentance

The disciple Chuitianzhiyi (Wings That Shade the Sky) recounts her experience of repenting verbal karma: After the disciple had committed verbal karma, she felt restless and agitated. Whether reciting sutras, performing prostration repentance before the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, or chanting the Great Compassion Mantra, her mind lacked its usual purity. So the disciple sat in meditation to calm her feelings, but after an hour it was still the same. She then repented to the Three Jewels over and over in her mind. She felt like the poor orphaned child who had lost his parents, as described by the Venerable Ānanda—immensely sorrowful and pained, with a feeling like a balloon pressing on her head and an aching heart. Thinking that her master might also be sitting in meditation at that time and should not be disturbed, she wiped her tears and continued meditating.

After a few minutes, suddenly vitality surged from the tendons of her feet all the way to the back of her head; in an instant she broke out in a full-body sweat, and both the dizziness and the heart pain vanished. She quickly grabbed her phone and sent you a message—that was at 11:10—and then continued meditating until she fell asleep at midnight. In a dream, the disciple was carrying a pile of things wrapped in a cloth bundle, going from house to house to repay debts. I said: Master, carrying so many things is so exhausting for your disciple—may I not call them all out and repay them together? You said no; the debts must be repaid one by one. I pondered this all morning: who still wraps things in a cloth bundle nowadays? Could it be old debts from past lives being repaid? Can repaying debts in a dream dissolve karmic obstructions?

The above is the account of the disciple's prostration repentance. The disciple had never experienced prostration repentance before. After the repentance, body and mind attained purity and the mind was clear and lucid—a step further than the purity she had felt before. Please, Master, give the disciple instruction and guidance.

Reply to the question: After committing unwholesome verbal karma, being able to reflect on it promptly, to recognize the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness, the right and wrong of one's verbal karma, and moreover to repent promptly—this is embarking on the path of the Four Right Efforts among the Thirty-Seven Factors of Enlightenment. Once the Four Right Efforts are well cultivated, evil ceases and goodness arises; only then can practice go smoothly, and the roots of goodness will grow. This is the foundation of studying and practicing Buddhism. Without this foundation, there is no talk of practice, and one is still far from realizing the Path. This was a sincere repentance from the depths of the heart, a true repentance of the manas, not a false, perfunctory repentance of the mind consciousness. Therefore, after the repentance, the evil karma was dissolved. During the sitting, the qi channels surged, the whole body sweated, and the illness and pain disappeared. Then, in sleep, the manas began to repay old debts, repaying the debts of past lives one by one. This is precisely the principle of repentance dissolving karma. Dreaming of repaying debts was the manas using the dream to show that one's karmic obstructions have been dissolved and a portion of one's old debts has been repaid. When the dissolving of karma and repaying of debts reach a certain degree, there will be no more obstacles in practice: meditative concentration will arise, wisdom will grow, progress in practice will be swift, and seeing the Path will also come quickly.

Therefore, at the very beginning of studying and practicing Buddhism, one should sincerely repent the karmic obstructions of the three periods of time. When karma is dissolved, there will always be various signs. The elimination of afflictions also comes with various signs and indications, usually shown in dreams and in meditative concentration. Some people's bodily, verbal, and mental actions are impure, yet after committing evil karma they remain oblivious—never reflecting, never recognizing it themselves, never repenting—and they will go on to repeat evil deeds. Clearly, such a person has not cultivated the Four Right Efforts and has not ceased evil and cultivated goodness. Yet in Buddhism it is precisely these people who always claim to have realized the fruits and awakened to the true mind, whereas those who practice better never recklessly exalt themselves; they are always truthful and use wisdom to judge and reason in accordance with the Dharma.

Have you had any of these stages of practice? Clearly you have not yet entered the stage of genuine cultivation, so how could you see the Path? One should constantly check whether one's practice has gotten on track and entered the stage of genuine cultivation, and what one's current level and stage are. If there are no signs at all, and afflictions and karmic obstructions are still quite heavy, then one should no longer consider oneself to have realized the fruits and awakened to the true mind, or regard oneself as a noble one. Wherein lies the nobility? Can it be seen? The more one does this, the more it shows how heavy one's self-attachment is, and the heavier one's pride and arrogance become.

Before seeing the Path, there are many dharmas that need to be cultivated, and all kinds of experiences must occur along the way. Whichever stage one goes through, and to what degree one's practice has reached, there will be signs, hints, and indications—all of which are evidence. If there are no experiences at all, and one merely talks this and that with one's mouth, no one can believe it. Most importantly, the tathāgatagarbha keeps no such record, so whatever anyone says is useless.

If you want to be a noble one, and there is truly no other way, then just beg the tathāgatagarbha repeatedly—ask the tathāgatagarbha to be accommodating, to show leniency, and to present the noble one's sublime states and retributions sooner. But if the tathāgatagarbha is iron-faced and impartial, handling matters justly, then there is nothing to be done: whatever identity you should have, that is the identity you will have, and even the Buddha's seal of confirmation would be useless.