The Origin of Beginningless Greed, Hatred, and Delusion

Question about the repentance verse: 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 of this verse, "all arising from beginningless greed, hatred, and delusion"—whose beginningless greed, hatred, and delusion does it refer to?

Answer: Greed, hatred, and delusion that have persisted from beginningless kalpas all the way to the present—could that possibly belong to the mind consciousness? 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? As for the mind consciousness's greed, hatred, and delusion, a bit of persuasion and education is enough—it quickly understands the principles, and subduing them is quite easy; they would not require years and years of repentance and still fail to be repented away. Some evil karma of greed, hatred, and delusion, after repentance, requires seeing favorable and auspicious signs—the Buddha coming to touch one's crown, Buddha-light shining down—before it can be eliminated. How deeply entrenched must this evil karma of greed, hatred, and delusion be? Could it be the mind consciousness's greed, hatred, and delusion? Where would the mind consciousness's hatred ever be so severe?

Before leaving home to receive the precepts, one repents of karmic offenses, and this takes a very long time; most people still cannot repent away their evil karma, to the point of being unable to receive the precepts—some fall ill, and some die on the spot. Before receiving the bodhisattva precepts, one must repent of offenses committed since beginningless kalpas; even for the three refuges and five precepts, one must repent in order to eliminate some offenses and obtain the precept substance. If the repentance is not pure, one cannot obtain the precept substance; a monastic without the precept substance is not a true monastic. One who has not obtained the precept substance of the bodhisattva precepts is not a bodhisattva either. Without the protection of the precept substance, there is no protective barrier when it comes to violating the precepts, and one easily breaks them. In later lives there is even less of a barrier—one breaks the precepts without even knowing it, thinking it is perfectly normal; the reason is precisely the absence of the protective barrier of the precept substance.