六祖大師法寶壇經 1.75

1.75

"Now I will confer upon you the formless repentance, extinguishing the transgressions of the three periods of time and enabling you to attain purity of the three karmas. Good friends! Each follow my words and say together at once: 'We disciples, from the preceding thought, the present thought, and the succeeding thought, in thought after thought, are not tainted by delusion. All the transgressions of evil karma, delusion, and the like from the past are completely repented; we vow that they are extinguished at once and will never arise again. We disciples, from the preceding thought, the present thought, and the succeeding thought, in thought after thought, are not tainted by arrogance and deceit. All the transgressions of evil karma, arrogance, deceit, and the like from the past are completely repented; we vow that they are extinguished at once and will never arise again. We disciples, from the preceding thought, the present thought, and the succeeding thought, in thought after thought, are not tainted by jealousy. All the transgressions of evil karma, jealousy, and the like from the past are completely repented; we vow that they are extinguished at once and will never arise again.' Good friends! The above is the formless repentance. What is called chan? What is called hui? Repenting (chan) is to repent of one's past faults: all the evil karma and transgressions of delusion, arrogance, deceit, jealousy, and the like from the past are completely repented so that they never arise again; this is called chan. Regretting (hui) is to regret one's future errors: from now on, all evil karma and transgressions of delusion, arrogance, deceit, jealousy, and the like, are now awakened to, completely severed forever, and will never be committed again; this is called hui. Therefore it is called repentance (chanhui). Ordinary beings, foolish and deluded, only know how to repent of their past faults, but do not know how to regret their future errors. Because they do not regret them, the past faults are not extinguished, and future errors arise again. If past faults are not extinguished and future errors arise once more, how can this be called repentance?