Repent of past offenses; Reform to prevent future transgressions

The Venerable Master had told us that he hopes all of us disciples would recite the repentance verse at least three times daily. “All the evil deeds that I had done in the past, arising from beginningless greed, anger, and delusion, brought forth through the body, speech, and mind, I now repent and reform of them all.” This short verse of four phrases clearly states the source of our karma – Arising from beginningless greed, anger, and delusion. Starting from one single thought of ignorance from beginningless time, our karmic sea has not stopped churning waves. The greed, anger, and delusion within grow heavier and more muddled with each lifetime.

Where does karma come from? Arising from beginningless greed, anger, and delusion, brought forth through the body, speech, and mind. The ‘mind’ is the instigator, inciting the body, mouth, and mind to do all sorts of evil karma. What evil karma can the body do? The body can perform acts of killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct. Next, the mouth. Despite being small in size, not larger than the face, the mouth can commit many evil karmas, i.e. engaging in deceitful speech, harsh speech, divisive speech, and frivolous speech. Next, the mind. From the mind come forth greed, anger, and delusion. Because of the arising of one single thought from the mind, our body, mouth, and mind gets incited to commit a multitude of karmic offenses, resulting in our heavy karmic burden.

Now as we study Buddhism, we must repent for and reform our body, mouth and mind, we must repent for and reform our six sense faculties. The six sense faculties pertain to our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind. We must train them, discipline them, and guide them. We cannot suppress them because suppression may lead to an uprising at some point in time. In addition to restraining them from going astray and continuing on the old improper ways, we must lead and guide them to advance into the proper bright path. That is true repentance and reform.
“Repent of past offenses; reform to refrain from transgressions in the future”. We must thoroughly rectify and reform the faults that we have recognized. Do not procrastinate. This way, we can truly obtain the benefit from our repentance and accrue merit and virtue in the process. Otherwise, by concealing our head while exposing our tail, our sincerity is insufficient to overcome the strong karmic forces, and we would not reap any benefits.

Over the years, I have come to realize the value of one’s life. It is in having the opportunity to treat and cure the various illnesses of our body and mind. When our mind and thought processes deviate from the norm, we get sick; our physiological illnesses are due to our muddled and heavy karma, which makes us imbalanced and diseased. Hence, our life is so very precious. It gives us the chance to repent all of our past offenses in order to create a bright path for our future. This is what makes life precious.

There is one more comment I want to say. Please correct me if I am wrong. Earlier, we were informed that a laity brought some fruits to the temple to share with everyone. However, she has offered these fruits to the Buddhas in her home. I am in agreeance with Dharma Master Shr. Please do not bring anything that you have offered to the Buddhas at home to the temple.

Some people say, “But previous dharma masters have accepted them in the past. Why not now?” Well, we don’t know the circumstances under why the dharma masters accepted them in the past. Let’s look at this from a different perspective on how to handle this matter. What will happen if every layperson brings to the temple the fruits that have been offered to the Buddhas at home? We would not finish them all and the fruits would be spoiled and wasted, creating offenses. Therefore, please do not bring to the temple the offerings you’ve made at home to the Buddhas. Keep them at home, enjoy them with your family and share the blessings from the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. It would be better that way.

This is our suggestion. Furthermore, I remember the Venerable Master frequently reminded us to not create trouble for other people. Keeping this teaching in mind will prompt us to reflect upon our actions and whether or not they are causing trouble for other people. By doing so, we can resolve many problems. Amitabha!