The Meritorious Benefits of True Repentance

Chuitianzhiyi (Wings Spread Across the Sky) recounts his experience of repenting verbal karma: After this disciple committed verbal karma, he felt restless and agitated. Whether reciting sutras, performing prostration repentance before the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, or reciting the Great Compassion Mantra, his mind lacked its usual purity. So the disciple sat in meditation hoping to calm his mood, but after sitting for an hour it remained the same, so he repeatedly repented to the Three Jewels in his heart. He felt like the poor orphaned child who had lost his parents, as described by the Venerable Ānanda—immensely sorrowful and pained, with what felt like a balloon pressing on his head and an aching heart. Thinking that his master might also be meditating at that time and should not be disturbed, he wiped his tears and continued sitting.

After a few minutes, suddenly vitality surged from the tendons of his feet all the way to the back of his head; in an instant his whole body broke out in sweat, and both the dizziness and the heart pain disappeared. He quickly grabbed his phone to send you a message—it was 11:10 at that moment—then continued meditating until falling asleep at twelve. In the dream, the disciple was carrying a pile of things wrapped in cloth bundles, going from house to house to repay debts. I said: Master, carrying so many things is exhausting for this disciple; may I call them all out and repay them together? You said no—the debts must be repaid one by one. I thought about it all morning: who still wraps things in cloth bundles nowadays? Could it be that what was being repaid were past-life debts? Can repaying debts in a dream eliminate karma?

The above is the course of this disciple's prostration repentance. The disciple had never before experienced prostration repentance; after the repentance, body and mind became pure and the mind was clear-headed, a purity even further advanced than what he had felt before. Please, Master, give this disciple instruction and guidance.

Reply to the question: After committing unwholesome verbal karma, being able to reflect on it in time, to know the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness, the right and wrong of the verbal karma, and moreover to repent in a timely manner—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, and only then can one's practice go smoothly, and the roots of goodness will grow. This is the foundation of learning Buddhism and cultivating practice; 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 repentance of the mind consciousness that is mere formality; therefore, after the repentance, the evil karma was eliminated. During the sitting, the qi channels surged, the whole body sweated, and the illness and pain vanished. Then, in the dream, the manas began to recompense past-life debts, repaying the debts of past lives one by one. This is precisely the principle of repentance eliminating karma. The dream of repaying debts was the manas using the dream to show that one's karmic obstructions have been eliminated and a portion of past-life debts has been repaid. When the elimination of karma and repayment of debts reach a certain degree, there will be no obstacles in practice; meditative concentration (samādhi) 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 learning Buddhism and cultivating practice, one should sincerely repent the karmic obstructions of the three lifetimes. When the karma is eliminated, there will always be various signs. The elimination of afflictions also has various signs and displays, usually shown in dreams and in meditative concentration. Some people, whose bodily, verbal, and mental actions are impure, remain oblivious and unaware after committing evil deeds—never reflecting, never recognizing it themselves, never repenting—and will repeat evil deeds in the future. 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 seen the mind, whereas those who cultivate better never recklessly overrate themselves; they are always realistic, using wisdom to deliberate and judge in accordance with the Dharma.

Have these processes of cultivation been present? Clearly not yet—so how could one have entered the stage of proper practice, let alone see the Path? One should frequently examine whether one's practice has gotten on track and entered the stage of proper 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 as having realized the fruit and seen the mind, or consider oneself a sage. Wherein lies the sageliness? Can it be seen? The more one does this, the more it shows one's self is heavy, and the heavier one's conceit and arrogance.

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, whatever level one's practice reaches, there will be signs, hints, and displays—all of these 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 one wants to be a sage, and there is truly no other way, then one can only beg the tathāgatagarbha repeatedly—asking it to be accommodating, to show leniency, and to present the sublime states and retributions of a sage sooner. But if the tathāgatagarbha is iron-faced and selfless, handling matters impartially, then there is nothing to be done: whatever identity one should have, that is the identity one has—even a confirmation from the Buddha would be useless.