Chapter 5 - Spiritual Response From The Repentance

Repentance puja is considered an integral part of Buddhism.

This ritual is known as repentance dharma. As far as I know, there are many types of rituals:

1. King Liang's precious repentance - King Liang invented this after reading the Mahayana sutras for his concubine.

2. Water repentance - invented by dharma master Wu Da after he learned it from Shen Zen.

3. Golden brightness repentance - Master Tian Tai invented it from the golden brightness sutra.

4. Avalokitesvara repentance - basing on the Avalokitesvara Sutra to eradicate all latent calamities.

5. Amitabha repentance - drawing the magnificent purity of Amitabha Buddha.

6. Avatamsaka (Fa Hua) - Master Tian Tai invented it from Avatamsaka Sutra, it is also known as the Six Sense-Organs and Avatamsaka samadhi.

7. Medicine Buddha - basing on the sutra of vows and merits of Medicine Buddha.

8. "Fang deng" - Master Tian Tai invented it from the combination of some dharani sutras.

Why must we do a repentance ritual?

It is mentioned in the "Xin Di " Sutra:

" The sin will grow if it is repeated, the sin will be annihilated if a repentance ritual is carried out."

All of us are familiar with the following repentance verse.

"These unwholesome karma created by me since time immemorial,

arising from my endless greed, hatred and ignorance,

created by my body, speech and mind,

I now repent what I have done."

A paragraph from "Da Ji" Sutra is what I like best.

"A piece of a hundred years' cloth, can be cleaned within a day. Likewise all the unwholesome karma we have accumulated over the umpteen lives can be annihilated if we take a little time, may be a day, to follow the right thought prescribed by the dharma."

There are three forms of repentance:

1. Confess all the unwholesome karma created by body, speech and mind in front of the Buddha. This form is used to atone for the precepts we have broken. It is known as "zuo fa" repentance.

2. Invoke a Buddha to touch our head, or a Bodhisattva to radiate light on us in our meditation. These auspicious signs can be used to eliminate all kinds of anxiety - it is known as "Qu Xiang" repentance.

3. Eradicate the ignorance of middle path by means of meditation on the doctrine of non-rebirth - known as "Wu Sheng" repentance.

In the "Ling Xian Vajra Tantra", I talked about how to do a True Buddha repentance ritual. There are five salient points:

1. Invocation of Buddha to witness
In our meditation, We must summon three Buddhas from the West, five Buddhas from the south, five Buddhas from the south and eight Buddhas from the north - altogether 21 Buddhas - to appear in the air and be our witnesses in the repentance ritual.

2. Radiation of lights for eradication
The virtue of 21 Buddhas can be used to reduce unwholesome karma and increase the merit of a cultivator. The cultivator must visualise the appearance of the Buddhas, each radiates colourful lights from his pores. The ray comes out from the pores will burst into illumination, and endless colours can be spotted. The light will be able to turn the worlds in ten directions into Buddha countries. And the cultivator immerses in a world of brightness. The five stages of a world's existence will have the lights. As the lights are omnipresent, first it can be used to change a filthy country to a Buddha country. Second, to liberate all the sentient beings who are supposed to be descended to hungry ghosts and animal realms because they have ten unwholesome karma, five profound sins, slander of triple gems, do not respect gurus and are un-filial.

Third, the light will radiate at the cultivator, so that his unwholesome karma will be eradicated. After the empowerment, he will be happy, upright, fortunate and smart. And be as dignified as a Buddha. He could also see the Buddhas of three lives from the ten directions.

3. Recite the names of Buddhas and chant mantra.
When seeing the lights, the cultivator must wholeheartedly recite the name of all the 21 Buddhas three times and chant the karma eradication mantra between 108 times and 1080 times. "Lipo lipo ti, qiu he qiu he ti, tuo luo ni ti, zhen ning qian it, suaha."

4. Visualisation and mudra
Left hand forms a fist and place it near the waist. Open the right palm, extend the five fingers (just like a five colour lights shine naturally ), and put the palm near the heart.

5. Transference and repentance
The unwholesome karma created over the past lives which would lead us to lower realms such as hell, animal, hungry ghosts or asura. Or the eight conditions in which it is difficult to see a Buddha or hear his dharma. All these will be eradicated when we cultivate right belief and repentance and the bad effect will not ripen. Following the Bodhisattvas before us who did cultivation and repent their unwholesome karma, we must confess and repent the same, so that all our past misdeeds will be exterminated and all our future misdeeds will not arise. The 21 Buddhas are invited to be our witness.

This is the True Buddha repentance ritual that must be cultivated together with four basic rituals and guru yoga. If we follow the rites properly, our merit will increase and hindrance will be removed totally.

The hundred words bright mantra is known to be the best mantra for repentance in Tibetan Tantra. Its three uses are:

1. Repentance

2. Empowerment by the five Buddhas

3. Ramification of imperfection if any in the cultivation

Two reasons of cultivating "Vajra heart Bodhisattva dharma" were stressed:

1. All the unwholesome karma from time immemorial can be eradicated.

2. True Buddha cultivator's action and vow will be as solid as a vajra.

The verse I wrote previously was:

Living Buddha Lian Shen teaches a major Tantra,

Vajrasattva changes into Vajraheart

A spiritual response occurs when the two embody into one,

Unwholesome karma eradicated and purity remains.

To show you a letter as evidence.

Many True Buddha disciples had spiritual response after cultivating the repentance rituals.

1) After cultivating it for 21 times, a disciple saw himself in a pure and clean lake. Living Buddha Lian-Shang radiated light to empower him from the air. The water turned into laser when the radiation passed through. It was amazing when the black water flew from the cultivator into the lake, it was immediately purified.

After the spiritual response, the disciple felt very fresh, as if he had a new life. His internal strength increased a lot.

2) Another disciple only cultivated the dharma for one week and he started to vomit. The sickness lasted for 3 days, and it could not be stopped. Although he did not vomit anything, those with spiritual eyes could see he vomited dirty things like worms, little turtles, small snakes, mosquitoes and centipedes. Thereafter he felt fresh, and all his sickness suddenly disappeared.

3) A disciple suffering from asthma cultivated the dharma for 49 days in order to eradicate his unwholesome karma created in his previous lives. One night using a vajra, a vajra god beat him up. He was thrown up and down and tortured the whole night in his dream. Finally he was forced by the Vajra god to eat a few stalks of grass. He felt nausea, and vomitted a little black man. His asthma was cured thereafter.

Another story is even more wonderful. A disciple only cultivated the repentance ritual about a month. In his mediation, he was brought to the heaven realm to ride a dragon. Like a wind, the dragon flew. He saw mountains, rivers and lands below him. He was dumbfounded. He was even given an audience with the Buddha.

He was so moved that he almost cried.

Buddha said to him, "you don't have to cry."

He asked, "How come by cultivating repentance ritual, I am able to see you?"

Buddha replied, "the five directional Buddhas change into five Vajra Dhara. And Vajrasattva is the six Vajra Dhara. Since he is the embodiment of five Buddhas, you will surely be able to see the Buddha".

The disciple wrote to me, and said "This is fantastic, repentance is a major dharma."

"Living Buddha Lian Shen is almost the reincarnation of a Buddha."

I know of many true stories of having spiritual response when cultivating repentance rituals. I just mentioned a few as records, since we have limited space.

I believe amongst the three ways of repentance, spiritual response from the "Qu Xiang" repentance would be more magnificent and trust-worthy. "Zuo Fa" repentance is too common, and "Wu Sheng" repentance is too high sounding for ordinary people to use. Only those who have good foundation can master it.

Personally I lay a stress on "Qu Xiang" repentance. The spiritual response derived from it can have many levels:

• Buddha touching the head,

• Boddhisattva radiating light at the cultivator,

• Eating white and vomiting black food,

• Riding a heavenly horse in the air,

• Dreaming about taking a bath and cleaning yourself,

• Dreaming about putting fragrance on your own body,

• Dreaming about flowers falling from the sky,

• Dreaming about your transparent body radiating light,

• Dreaming about initiating the eyes of a Buddha image.

I believe even a saint will have committed some faults before. If we are able to cultivate the True Buddha repentance ritual, all our predicaments can be eradicated, like mountains, oceans and planet being destroyed by fire. Doing repentance can burn away our distress. It can extinguish the fire in hell and result in coolness in the heaven. By cultivating repentance ritual, we can reach a high level of meditation and obtain profound wisdom and longevity. We are able to reside in the pure land and see the blossom of purest lotus flowers. It will eventually lead to Buddhahood and we are enlightened.

Now let me give you the theory of "Wu Sheng" repentance:

It is said in the Avatamsaka Sutra,

"Bodhisattva uses his right view to observe the world and knows all the dharma derived from karma. When he examines all the dharma, he knows they stem from cause and effect. If there is no birth; there will not be death."

It is said in the Commentary on the Prajnaparamita Sutra,

"The law of Karma is without self-nature, that is why ultimately it is emptiness. Emptiness is not the work of Buddha, nor the work of human beings."

It is said in Avatamsaka Sutra,

"The accomplishment of a Buddha is very difficult to understand, only Buddhas themselves can really understand the truth of all dharma"

These are the foundations of "Wu Sheng" repentance.

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