Part One · Pāli Roots · The First Laying-Open

This book has a long road to walk — from the plainest act in the Vinaya, disclosure (saying the fault one has committed aloud, before the assembly), all the way to the repentance of non-arising — the seeing-clearly that the "I" who erred and the transgression it committed were, from the very first, nowhere to be found. The starting point is an act that can be spoken; the end is a seeing. Along the way the road passes the double edge of remorse in the Āgamas, passes Samantabhadra's repentance of the karmic obstacle, passes the many repentance liturgies the Chinese patriarchs set down. The rites will grow ever more solemn, the doctrine ever deeper. Yet beneath it all, one and the same thing is being walked: laying what was hidden out into the light — first the laying-open of a fault, and at the very last, the laying-open of the "I" that hid it.

The starting point is the plainest place of all.

Today, most people who hear the word "repentance" think of an ache of distress, a word of apology. Long before that, in the Buddha's Saṅgha, repentance was first of all an act and an institution — to say it out, to be received, to return to the ranks of the pure.

What Part One does is return to this root.

Three chapters, unfolding in order. The first takes the word "repentance" apart — it was three things all along: remorse is the feeling within; disclosure is the saying before others; kṣama is the being-received. The second watches the Vinaya set a price on hiding — as many days hidden, so many more days on the road back to purity. The third watches the Saṅgha cast "not hiding" into a rhythm — the invitation (pavāraṇā) year by year, the uposatha fortnight by fortnight, and even the Buddha giving Himself up first.

The foundation must be nailed down firm. We begin with that stitched-together word.