廣弘明集 27.44

27.44

Body, speech, and mind are the heads of disasters and troubles. Therefore the sūtra says: 'Where there is a body, suffering arises; where there is no body, suffering ceases.' Having known its trouble and suffering, one should curb and extinguish it. The essential means to extinguish suffering is none other than repentance. As for the method of repentance: first, one should purify one's mind, quiet one's thoughts, make one's form upright, arrange one's appearance, make one's body respectful, and solemnize one's countenance. Internally, one harbors shame and remorse; externally, one expresses abasement and shame. A classic says: 'In propriety, there is nothing without respect; arrogance must not be allowed to grow.' It also says: 'To have faults and be able to reform—this is called having no faults.' A sūtra says: 'Regard all sentient beings with respect, thinking of them as one's kin.' Each must examine their own faults, and only then repent. From beginingless realms down to this life, we and the multitude have created all manners of painful karma due to body and mind. All relying on delusion, we have largely violated the supreme teachings. Thus, out of arrogance and indolence, our bodily actions were disrespectful, sleeping and sitting were dissolute, and our movements were frivolous and haughty. Or, entering and leaving monastic quarters and ascending halls and shrines, our prostrations and circumambulations were physically undisciplined and unhumble. Or, before parents, teachers, elders, high, middle, or low seats, good friends, and spiritual mentors, our clothing was improper, and our movements and deportment contravened propriety; observing things unvirtuously, our usage violated decorum. Or stealing the property of the triratna, the belongings of relatives, and all possessions of others; plundering and forcefully seizing; deceiving by increasing or decreasing; arrogating and trespassing beyond our measure. Or behaving in licentious abandon, outside of proper times and places, without distinction from animals, not avoiding kin and relatives. Or committing the five heinous sins; burning with fire and drowning with water; raiding, capturing, and entrapping; administering poison to the innocent. Or tattooing, cutting off noses, amputating feet, cutting off ears; torturing, flogging, hacking, and shooting; wounding, maiming, beheading, dismembering, harming, flaying, and tearing apart; slaughtering, butchering, roasting, burning, boiling, broiling, scalding, and stewing. All such sins were committed either for lust, or for wealth and gain, or for stinginess and greed, or for delusion and selfhood. Feeling no shame before the worthy and the foolish, and no remorse before the sages and masters. Now reflecting that these faults follow us like shadows following forms, with fear, shame, sorrow, and bitter pain, we repent. Having repented, toward those who have inflicted harm on us, from now on they shall be our true good friends; life after life we will face them, showing and instructing them with the Dharma. We pray that the Buddhas of the ten directions will especially embrace and remember us; we repent the karmic obstacles of the body, never to create them again.