The Origin of Beginningless Greed, Hatred, and Delusion

Question on the Repentance Gāthā: 往昔所造诸恶业，皆由无始贪嗔痴，从身语意之所生，一切我今皆忏悔。The second line, "皆由无始贪嗔痴" (all arise from beginningless greed, hatred, and delusion) — whose beginningless greed, hatred, and delusion does it refer to?

Answer: The greed, hatred, and delusion from beginningless kalpas have continued all the way to the present — that could not possibly belong to the mind consciousness, could it? The mind consciousness has existed for only a few decades, whereas the manas has existed for countless years, millions upon millions of years, countless kalpas. Whose greed, hatred, and delusion could this be? The greed, hatred, and delusion of the mind consciousness can be dealt with simply by reasoning with it and educating it a little; it quickly understands the principles, and subduing it is very easy — it would not require years and months of repentance and still fail to be repented away. Some evil karma of greed, hatred, and delusion, even after repentance, requires seeing favorable and auspicious signs — the Buddha coming to touch one's crown, Buddha-light shining down — before it can be extinguished. How deeply rooted must such evil karma of greed, hatred, and delusion be? Could it possibly be the greed, hatred, and delusion of the mind consciousness? How could the hatred of the mind consciousness ever be so severe?

Before leaving home and receiving the precepts, one must repent of karmic offenses for a very long time, and for most people the evil karma still cannot be repented away, to the point that they are unable to receive the precepts, or fall ill, or even die on the spot. Before receiving the bodhisattva precepts, one must repent of offenses accumulated over beginningless kalpas; even for the three refuges and five precepts, one must repent in order to extinguish some offenses and obtain the substance of the precepts. If the repentance is not pure, one cannot obtain the substance of the precepts; a monastic without the substance of the precepts is not a true monastic. One who has not obtained the substance of the bodhisattva precepts is not a bodhisattva either. Without the protection of the precept substance, there is no barrier when it comes to violating the precepts, and it becomes very easy to break them. In future lives there is even less of a barrier — when violating the precepts, one does not even know that one is violating them and considers it a perfectly normal thing; the reason is precisely the absence of the barrier provided by the precept substance.