Part Four · The Death-and-Rebirth Bridge · Repentance, Between Death and Birth

By this point, the first three parts have, in the main, finished speaking of repentance's own affairs. But in this part, repentance shows for the first time its place on the whole road of practice — it is not an isolated gate; it is a seam.

The repentance this book speaks of is the third of the six gates. The gate before it is giving — loosening, inch by inch, the hand clenched tight around "mine"; loosened to the utmost, the "I" itself is shaken loose, like a "death of the self." The gate after it is the precept — cleared clean, one receives a new precept-substance, like a "rebirth." Repentance is wedged exactly between this "death" and this "birth": giving puts the self to death, repentance clears the karma after the death, the precept welcomes the new birth.

So this part is a bridge with two faces. It has a face turned backward, joining onto giving — catching the self that has been loosened, the self headed toward death. It has a face turned forward, joining onto the precept — passing the one now purified on to the new precept-substance.

Two chapters. The first walks the entry-seam — watching how repentance catches the loss of self that giving hands over, and why only after the loss of self is disclosure real. The second walks the exit-seam — watching how, once repentance has cleared the karma, that one word "then" hands a person over to the new precept-substance, over to rebirth.

One thing must be said plainly first, lest the road go astray. From beginning to end of this part, the "death" and the "loss of self" spoken of mean only this: that the grasping self — the one clutching "mine," guarding "I am pure" — has come loose. It never means that those offenses, one by one, have emptied away with it. The offense, in this part, remains vivid throughout, something to be disclosed as it is. What is emptied is the confessing self, not the offense confessed — and this one boundary must be held through the whole part.

We go first to walk the entry side of the bridge, to watch how repentance catches the self that giving hands over — the self headed toward death.