Repenting Karmic Obstructions: First "Recollect Oneself," Then Repentance Can Move

7.5 Repenting Karmic Obstructions: First "Recollect Oneself," Then Repentance Can Move

The reverence toward the Buddha is told — the first three vows: the body bows, the mouth praises, the hands offer. But a person must face more than the Buddha; there is also oneself. The fourth vow, repenting karmic obstructions.

This vow's opening act points straight to its root:

Further, good son! To repent karmic obstructions is this: the bodhisattva reflects — through beginningless kalpas of the past, out of greed, hatred, and delusion, I have set body, speech, and mind in motion and done evil deeds beyond measure and beyond bound.

"The bodhisattva reflects" — first, recollection. Repentance is not weeping and pleading from the very start; it is first to "reflect," to recollect oneself: to grow still, and to call up, one by one, and see clearly, the manifold evil deeds wrought since beginningless time out of greed, hatred, and delusion, through body, speech, and mind. Only when one has recollected clearly what one has done can repentance move at all. A person who will never turn and look back at himself cannot rise to repentance; the first step of repentance is that one thought willing to turn back.

Samantabhadra then uses a figure that tells the full weight of this karma:

If these evil deeds had substance and form, the whole realm of empty space could not contain them.

Suppose these evil deeds were given a body, a shape — then the whole realm of empty space could not hold them. To such a degree. This is said not to crush a person, but so that one will not take one's own old account lightly — taken lightly, the repentance is perfunctory; the weight seen clearly, the repentance comes true.

Repentance Is Repented "Before the Buddha"

The karma recollected clearly, its weight seen, how does one repent? Samantabhadra says:

I now, with the three karmas purified, before all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas throughout the dharma-realm, in lands numerous as dust-motes, repent with an utterly sincere heart, and will not do these deeds again, abiding always in the pure precepts and all their merits.

With pure body, speech, and mind, before all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas throughout the dharma-realm, dust upon dust, land upon land, repenting with a sincere heart, never to do these things again, abiding in all the merits of the pure precepts.

Look at those words — "before all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas." Repentance is not a person shutting the door and reproaching himself alone; it is standing before the Buddha to repent. But where is the Buddha? Still that one thought of the first vow: first recollect the Buddhas into presence, as if before the eyes, and only then is there a "before" to stand and to repent in. Without recollecting the Buddha into presence, repentance is repented to empty air; recollecting the Buddha into presence, this repentance truly has one to receive it, one to witness it.

Look too at the four words "will not do these deeds again." To repent is not only to wash away the old; it is, in this very moment, to set up a vow: henceforth not to do them again. Repentance that only weeps over the past and does not guard the future is a leaking basin — washed once, fouled once. True repentance, one hand washing away the old karma, the other "abiding always in the pure precepts" — from now guarding shut that door by which evil is done.

This stratum the book has laid down long before: in Part Five, the repentance-recollection of the Golden Light Sūtra; the Brahmā Net and the Contemplation Sūtra with their recollection, repentance, and seeing the Buddha's signs manifest and so gaining purity — all the same structure: repentance must, by buddha-recollection, bring the Buddha before one's face, and only then is it washed clean. This vow of Samantabhadra gathers it into the ten great vows.

Buddha-Recollection Is the Most Thorough Repentance of All

Repentance and buddha-recollection, at their deepest, are one thing. This the Sūtra on the Contemplation of Amitāyus says most directly of all.

The sūtra tells of the "lowest birth of the lowest grade" — a foolish man who has done the gravest evil deeds, at the approach of death pressed past bearing by the signs of hell. A good teacher comes and teaches him to recollect the Buddha, but he is "pressed by pain and has no leisure to recollect the Buddha" — the agony presses so that he cannot even form the recollection. The good friend then says: if you cannot recollect that Buddha, then voice aloud the Buddha's name.

Thus with a sincere heart, letting the sound not break off, he completes ten recollections, calling "Namo Amitābha Buddha." Because he calls the Buddha's name, in thought after thought the evil of eighty koṭis of kalpas of birth-and-death is wiped away.

With a sincere heart calling on, sound after sound unbroken, filling out ten recollections, one line after another of "Namo Amitābha Buddha." Just because he has called the Buddha's name, "in thought after thought the evil of eighty koṭis of kalpas of birth-and-death is wiped away" — recite one line, and the grave evil of eighty koṭis of kalpas of birth-and-death is gone; recite ten, and that old account which the whole realm of space could not contain is wiped away.

Set this line beside Samantabhadra's vow of repentance. Samantabhadra says the karma is so much that the whole realm of space could not contain it; the Contemplation Sūtra says that one Buddha-name, in thought after thought, wipes away the evil of eighty koṭis of kalpas. Then what is the most thorough repentance? Nothing else — it is buddha-recollection. Recollecting the Buddha thought after thought, you are repenting thought after thought; one Name falls, and one length of the old karma is gone. Samantabhadra lists repentance as a vow; the Contemplation Sūtra tells you the swiftest way to lay hold of it: calling the Name. For an old person who knows his own karma is heavy yet cannot rise to elaborate rites of repentance, this is a comfort vast as heaven — you need only be willing to recite this one line, and repentance is in your mouth, in your thought after thought.

This Vow, the Verse Sings It Thus

Whatever evil deeds I did of old, all sprang from beginningless greed, anger, and delusion, born of body, speech, and mind — all of them I now repent.

Whatever evil deeds I did of old, all born of beginningless greed, hatred, and delusion (the verse runs "greed, anger, and delusion," anger being hatred), arising from the three places of body, speech, and mind — all of them, now, I repent. These four lines are the verse of repentance that later ages can recite by heart and recite daily. They gather that whole long passage of prose into the plainest single thought of turning back: to recognize that the karma comes from the three poisons and arises from the three karmas, and in this one thought to own it all, repent it all. And the floor under this "all of them I repent" is still that "reflecting" — recollect the old karma up, and only then can the old karma be set down.

The repentance closes, again, on those eight words: "moment by moment continuous, without interruption; my actions of body, speech, and mind without weariness." Repentance, too, is moment by moment continuous — not one good cry and done, but thought after thought washing the heart toward purity; and that thought after thought can be, precisely, one Buddha-name after another.

One's own faults are owned, repented. And the goodness of others? The next vow, rejoicing in merit: turning that one thought from staring at one's own shortcomings to gladdening at others' strengths.