True Repentance and False Repentance

Repentance, if it is truly sincere repentance, with the manas willing to admit its faults, can alter karmic seeds, or make karmic seeds disappear, or make karmic seeds less likely to become manifest, or lighten the retribution. Because the manas can repent and its mental activities change, new karmic seeds can be stored, offsetting the old karmic seeds; the degree of repentance differs, and the degree of offsetting differs accordingly. If it is not sincere repentance, but merely a perfunctory, going-through-the-motions repentance of the mind consciousness, then the manas's mental activities do not change, the old karmic seeds do not change, and the retribution will not change.

It is just like this when we repent face to face with others: if the other person senses that our repentance is sincere, their heart often softens and they forgive us, no longer holding past grievances against us; if the other person feels our repentance is insincere, they know our mind has not changed, will not forgive us, and will then seek ways to retaliate. Especially if they know we are pretending to repent and deliberately deceiving them, they will become even angrier, thereby intensifying their retaliation. True repentance is the repentance of the manas; false repentance is merely the superficial perfunctoriness of the mind consciousness. Naturally, true repentance is effective and can dissolve karma, while false repentance cannot dissolve karma and may even aggravate it.