As I woke up early this morning
in preparation for the repentance ceremony (Liang
Wang Bao Chang), my husband intervened: “We have to move all the retaining wall blocks from the drive way to the
backyard.” Of all days it just had to be today, but I couldn’t let go of
the thought of him setting up my vegetable patch on his own. Eventually I
agreed to stay at home to help him, reluctantly staring at my son. Today I told
him we are going repent in three aspects:
1) Vacuum
repentance – while we vacuum the house, we should think about all the mistakes that
we have done. Through this, we may remove all the dirt and dust from the floor
like clearing up our mind. We wholeheartedly repent for the mistakes and sincerely
vow not to repeat these make in front of the Triple Gems. Our mistakes may include our actions, speech
and thoughts.
2) Mopping
the floor repentance – As we mop the floor with detergent we may connect our thoughts
with the words from the Water Repentance.
We may purify our mind with Dharma, repent our mistakes and refrain from
repeating them. We sincerely repent in front of the Triple Gems.
3) Moving
block repentance – whilst moving the cement blocks away from the drive way, we may
think of eradicating our obstacles on our Dharma path, such as greed, hatred, ignorance,
jealousy, anxiety, fear, anger, desire, depression, etc. We wholeheartedly repent
in front the Triple Gems within our heart; we will try to remove the internal obstacles
in order to attain a clean Dharma Path.
I explained to my son that although
repenting at the temple is good, it does not require oneself to repent at a
temple. If for whatever reasons we cannot be at the temple, we can have our way
of repentance as long as we are sincere and truly repent from our heart and refrain
from repeating the mistakes, this is true repentance.
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