Chua Duoc Su

Often, when the mind is not mindful, it easily gives rise to passion, anger, jealousy, ignorance, etc. All mistakes and delusions originate from a mind that is not mindful. Even with this awareness, what should you do when things happen unintentionally?

To eliminate these mistakes, the Buddha's teachings offer a method called:

- Repentance and Vows.

Now, let's understand each word of the idiom "repentance and vows."

- Repentance means to renew, to start again, to commit that you will not do as you did before, that you will not cause further mistakes and follies like those you made in the past.

- Remorse means resolutely refraining from creating new mistakes.

- Vows mean resolving not to do the things that caused the damage and resolving to do things that can heal, change, and bring about transformation, peace, and happiness for yourself and others. Aspiration also means wishing, a determination to fulfill one's wish. A wish to reconnect with loved ones, to renew and transform suffering, and to create happiness. Therefore, practicing this method allows you to go through a process of transformation, because this practice is not about asking a supreme being to do things for you that you cannot do yourself. This practice guides you in your practice. You will see that this is the light of wisdom shining upon yourself and your current circumstances so that you can clearly see the situation. Once you see the present and have wisdom, you know the path to follow, that is, you know what to do and what not to do to begin a renewal, that is, to start anew. This method is an opportunity for you to shine the light of mindfulness upon yourself and your circumstances to see your past mistakes and shortcomings. You will see your future path, a path on which you will not repeat the mistakes and shortcomings of the past. This is a practice of self-cultivation, not a plea to any deities.

As a Buddhist disciple, the Buddha is like a teacher, a loving spiritual father to you, which is why you call him "compassionate father." This benevolent father possesses immense power—the power of wisdom, love, and understanding, not the power of authority or wealth. The power of the Compassionate Father arises from great understanding and love, from fearlessness in the face of suffering and mistakes. This power helps you know that you can overcome suffering and mistakes and will not drown in the ocean of suffering. That is why you often praise the Buddha as a great hero, great strength, and great compassion. Therefore, each time you repent and make such a vow, you can visualize the Buddha seated on a beautiful lotus throne. That lotus throne is the lotus throne in your heart, and the Buddha is also seated on that lotus throne. Through such contemplation, your mind calms down, no longer preoccupied with anxieties, worries, and anger; your mind becomes peaceful again. In that moment of calm, there is peace, no turmoil within. Calming the mind is a practice. Sitting in meditation, chanting scriptures, practicing mindful breathing, and paying homage to the Buddha are all ways to calm the mind. All these practices are to help your heart settle down, become pure, and regain focus.

This spirit of repentance is a very high wisdom of Buddhism regarding renewal. Relying on this practice will help you change all the mistakes that arise in your mind. Therefore, you must practice calming the mind so that the dust of afflictions and stress may fall away, and your mind may find peace. When the mind is pure, you will have concentration and be able to connect with the Buddha. The Buddha is on the altar, and the Buddha is right within your heart.

Although these are secondary actions, they are very important. Therefore, whenever you repent and make a vow, you need to clasp your hands together, your two hands becoming a lotus flower. All past, future, and present matters are left behind. You return to facing yourself, to the Buddha. That is the practice. You practice, and you obtain that lotus flower because of the practice of calming your mind. Through practice, the anger and delusion within you have transformed into a lotus flower. If you know how to repent and make a vow, that anger and delusion will transform into a lotus flower. This lotus flower of the heart will not wither, because it was not bought in the market or picked from a lake. This lotus flower is born from your practice. That lotus flower is made of a calm and pure mind. When you want a lotus flower to offer to the Buddha, you immediately have it. You visualize a lotus throne, the Compassionate Father sitting there. That visualization creates purity in the heart, and this lotus bud is your heart to offer to the Buddha.

The Buddha was born more than 26 centuries ago. To say you met the Buddha a little late is actually true; you lacked merit and affinity, which is why you encountered the true Dharma and the Buddha a little late. Because of this lack of affinity and merit, you lived in mindfulness for quite a long time. You slept a very long sleep, a long sleep perhaps from year to year, or from lifetime to lifetime. By the time you encountered the true Dharma, the dream had been too long, and in that dream of mindfulness, countless mistakes and follies had been created, causing suffering to you and many others. Although you met the true Dharma a little late, you still had a little affinity; you clearly recognized the deepest cause of suffering: mindfulness. Afflictions are mental afflictions and consequences. Afflictions are thoughts that burn within a person and cause you distress, such as:

- Greed, anger, delusion, envy, fear, anxiety, and sorrow.

These are difficult situations, entangled and inescapable predicaments. Even if you didn't intend to cause suffering to others or to cause yourself suffering, your clumsiness has still led to breakdowns. You don't know how to behave, speak tactfully, or use kind words, thus causing damage and suffering for yourself and others.

Everyone makes mistakes. Now, in this act of repentance and vow, you must acknowledge that in the past you have made mistakes and acted foolishly. The root of all mistakes and foolishness is ignorance, meaning a lack of discernment. Ignorance is also forgetfulness, darkness, a lack of light. You have lived in darkness, lived without mindfulness, and stumbled. You have allowed darkness to envelop you day after day, month after month.

Within each of you lies inherent goodness, but due to ignorance, you allow anger and suffering to dominate through reading novels, watching television, chatting, and entertainment, allowing your good qualities to be invaded by toxins and afflictions from the outside. You don't know how to protect your possessions and ownership, you don't know how to practice the Five Precepts, and you let your mind be influenced by vices from society. This is happening to millions of people in the world. As a person who practices spiritual cultivation, you shouldn't let these bad habits sow seeds in the field of your consciousness. You must be a conscious gardener. Greed, anger, and self-love are three of the worst seeds.

A large part of suffering is caused by the mouth. Controlling your mouth greatly increases happiness. In the past, you have created karma through false speech, spoken unskillfully, foolishly caused disturbances and doubts, and said unnecessary things that eroded trust. When practicing together, you must use mindfulness in your speech. Simply controlling your mouth and never uttering a single hurtful word can bring immense happiness. Practice speaking constructively, creating joy for each other.

Causing harm with words is common. You want to love and bring happiness to the other person, but you still say and do things that cause them continuous suffering. When you cause harm, the relationship between you and the other person becomes increasingly difficult. This difficulty stems from your un mindful speech and actions. You have caused distress to yourself and others. These obstacles block communication, eroding happiness in daily life. Repentance means recognizing all your shortcomings, foolishness, mistakes, ignorance, karmic obstacles, and failures. Recognizing them as the root of suffering, you repent to the Buddha and vow not to do so again from this moment on.

Much of your suffering arises from your relationships with loved ones and those around you. This could be your partner, your children, your parents, your siblings, your teachers, or your brothers and sisters. It's a human connection. There are times when your mind is overwhelmed by sadness and despair. Sadness stems from a lack of joy in life, leading to discouragement and a loss of motivation. Sadness and despair are negative energies that cause suffering and demoralize you. Your relationships with loved ones have become so strained and difficult that you feel helpless. You lose all hope and feel incapable of living happily.

Among the 51 mental factors, there is one called repentance. This repentance mental factor is indeterminate, as it can be either good or bad. Repentance can be a wholesome or unwholesome mental factor. It is wholesome when it means remorse, the ability to recognize mistakes and resolve not to repeat them. However, if it is merely a persistent feeling of guilt that drains you of positive energy, then it is unwholesome. Because you don't know how to renew yourself, how to transform old karma, you remain perpetually anxious.

Living in anxiety means not understanding, not seeing the difficulties, suffering, and aspirations of the other person. According to Buddhist teachings, you can only love when you understand. Understanding is the foundation of love. When you've never had the time to look closely at the other person to understand their difficulties and habits, when you haven't seen their upbringing and family life in the past, that's why you get angry and upset about what they've said, done, and reacted to. Therefore, to love, you must see and understand the difficulties, suffering, and habits of the person you love. You must contemplate to see why they have those difficulties, suffering, and habits; and when you understand, you can accept them, and you will no longer react angrily. So, loving each other begins with understanding each other. You must practice together, and you must seek the guidance of virtuous friends to understand each other. If you practice like that, then accepting and forgiving each other becomes very easy.

Many times, you tend to reason and blame others. Reasoning is good, but it doesn't lead to any results, yet many of you continue to reason. You only want to use reasoning to resolve the relationship between you and the other person, even though you know that reasoning only widens the gap between you two. Now that you know the method of repentance, you must tell yourself to stop reasoning, because you have been reasoning for so many years without success. Only acceptance and forgiveness can help you change and help others. If you can transform, you will suffer much less, and others will suffer less as a result. Therefore, you resolve to stop reasoning and especially to stop blaming. To transform the relationship between you and others, to re-establish communication, you must resolve to abandon reasoning and blaming.

As people living together, if you want happiness, you must do the same; there is no other choice. Stop reasoning and blaming because each time you reason and blame, you create more suffering. The reason the gap between you widens is because of reasoning and blaming. Because you only focus on blaming, even if it's a loved one or a friend, no matter how lovely they are, you still find their face too hateful, so you don't want to talk to them or even look at them anymore, creating an internal conflict. Before, you vowed to love each other, live together, and share everything, but now you no longer want to see each other or talk to each other. This is because you have caused each other so much suffering. Then, because of this suffering, you tend to blame and reproach each other:

- I'm suffering so much, and I think all my suffering is caused by you, so I hate you, I resent you. The other person feels the same way.

The disgust is clearly shown on each person's face, so not wanting to look at each other is natural. Moreover, if looking at each other doesn't bring happiness, then you don't want to look anymore. Not knowing how to use kind words, when you talk to each other, you don't feel happy, and therefore, you don't want to talk anymore.

Thus, repentance is the courage to look at the truth to find the cause of that truth. Look directly, without fear. Look back to see the inner knot, which is a mass of suffering in the heart. If you identify the inner knot and see the cause of its arising, that is already an enlightenment, and you will continue to progress from that enlightenment. Whenever you discover that the inner knot is being nurtured and developing, you must find a way to stop it and immediately replace it with good qualities. Because everyone within you has the capacity for understanding, love, and happiness. You must have the courage to stop the nurturing of bad seeds and do so skillfully, with kind words accompanied by love. In a family, both husband and wife need to care for each other. Because if one is happy, the other will also be happy.

How do you live to find happiness in the present moment? This is the heart of mindfulness practice. In the past, you thought happiness couldn't exist in the present. You had to search for happiness in the future. Because you thought the conditions for happiness weren't there yet, you chased after them in the future. Or you regretted the past. Meanwhile, the Buddha's teachings emphasize dwelling in the present moment. If you return to the present moment to recognize the conditions for happiness that are already present, then happiness will come immediately. If you are unable to dwell in the present, it means you are trampling on the conditions for happiness that are already there. You will be trapped in a cycle of sadness and anger, disregarding the treasures in your hands. Treasures are the precious things you have, such as youth, good eyesight, and healthy legs. All of these have the potential to bring you happiness.

Returning to the present moment, you realize that the elements of happiness are all around you. If you recognize the conditions for happiness present in the moment, you will not trample on those conditions, and the years will not be filled with endless suffering as in the past. This is the kind of wisdom that comes from practice, illuminating your path to ending the chasing after illusions, getting stuck in the past, and wandering towards the future. You will know to return to the present to recognize the happiness that truly exists in the present.

Repentance also means change, and change also means repentance. You learn how to practice, how to act so as not to cause suffering anymore. Use the light of mindfulness to clearly see that you need to practice nurturing the seeds of goodness within yourself and in others. You need to return to learning to live in the present moment, recognizing the conditions for happiness that are already present, so that you can live according to the Buddha's teaching of present moment happiness, living happily in the present moment, without needing any additional conditions. The conditions you already have are sufficient for happiness.

After going through the repentance practice, you move on to the vow. You make a vow, a commitment to yourself, to the Buddha, and to others, even if they are not present; you still follow this vow. A vow is a wish, a determination, a request. You wish and request the Three Jewels, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, to support you so that you can renew yourself effectively. Making a vow is also a very powerful energy within you. With that energy, you can accomplish many things. When you have seen the path and are determined to walk that path, a lot of energy is generated within you. Repentance has the power to generate the energy of the vow within you. The practice of repentance is successful when the energy of vows fills the person.

If your repentance practice is placed within the context of the witness, protection, and support of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the results will be much better. The Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of old also made mistakes, and they knew how to stop, renew themselves, and vow to walk the path of enlightenment. You are doing the same today, following in their footsteps. Now you decide to end those mistakes and begin to renew yourself. You are doing as the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of old did. This brings you closer to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. In the context of repentance, you establish a communication with all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas within you and around you. Your energy is personal energy, but at the same time, it is also collective energy. These two types of energy depend on each other to form, just like collective karma and individual karma. An individual practicing within a group can generate energy, but the group is also generating energy. If you can combine your individual energy with the energy of your fellow practitioners and benefit from that energy, the success will be immense. By contributing to the group's energy through your personal practice and benefiting from the energy of your fellow practitioners, your personal energy will grow. Self-reliance always goes hand in hand with external support; within self-reliance, there is external support, and within external support, there is self-reliance.

You are looking towards the Buddhas of the ten directions and the enlightened beings in flesh and blood who are present. Because a Buddha is a Bodhisattva, and a Bodhisattva is a Buddha, present or future. Bodhisattvas are sentient beings, living beings, people who are practicing enlightenment, who are progressing towards enlightenment. Enlightened beings, or sentient beings who are enlightened. Bodhisattva is an abbreviation of Bodhisattva, which has two meanings:

- Enlightened beings and sentient beings who are enlightened

That is:

- A being who has attained enlightenment and is helping others to attain enlightenment.

You turn to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and make a vow:

- Today I vow to renew myself, to not repeat the mistakes of the past. May the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas bear witness and support me.

You seek the energy of the Sages and virtuous friends, of your fellow practitioners, to accomplish this. Your fellow practitioners are a reality, not a vague concept, comprising those who have made mistakes but have repented, made vows, and are on the path of transformation and enlightenment. Relying on this energy is not a superstitious supplication. Sitting in a group of practitioners, you feel more secure than sitting alone. This is because a group of practitioners emits energy, and when you are in a group, you receive that energy. You have local practitioners and also practitioners from all ten directions. Within the local Sangha, there may be those who have attained sainthood, and among the virtuous friends in the ten directions, there are certainly many who have attained sainthood, including the Arhat, Bodhisattva, and Buddha stages. You must know how to utilize the presence of fellow practitioners in the ten directions, relying on the energy of this community so that you can progress quickly in transformation and healing. Just as when you are determined to go to America, you will be able to go one way or another. It is the same within the community of practitioners; within the community of practitioners, there are Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who can help you reach the goal of enlightenment and liberation very quickly. Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Arhats, Pratyekabuddhas, and Sages are real beings in life, people who have suffered, repented, and made vows. Therefore, in your practice, you must know how to utilize the energy of these beings to create tangible energies for yourself.

In the light of that energy, you want to be proven that you are determined to renew yourself and will not repeat past mistakes. You need the proof of virtuous friends and of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Sages. This is very important, because although you alone can renew yourself and make vows, when you make vows and renew yourself in the presence of a large community of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Arhats, Pratyekabuddhas, and Sages, the energy will increase manifold.

You are often immersed in the ocean of suffering and samsara. The virtuous friends and the community of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Arhats, Pratyekabuddhas, and Sages are the boat that helps you cross that ocean of suffering and samsara. With a boat, you will certainly no longer be submerged. As long as you rely on your fellow practitioners, you will have a boat. The moment you leave your fellow practitioners, you are abandoning the boat, losing its solid protective energy, and facing the danger of sinking. Therefore, everyone must return to rely on their virtuous friends.

The virtuous friends are practicing the Dharma, so they are also the boat of the Dharma. If your practice weakens, you may sink, but the boat of the virtuous friends is strong enough to carry you. In the past, you have walked paths of suffering and injustice. Many times, you couldn't even express those injustices. Now, thanks to the boat of your fellow practitioners, you are freed from humiliation, injustice, and suffering to reach happiness and freedom. Therefore, the power of others is first likened to pure nectar, capable of extinguishing mental afflictions, and then likened to a boat carrying you away from suffering and injustice. All of you need the power of others.

A vow is a promise you make to use your own strength to seek the power of others. Just like a radio broadcasting programs, the radio signal is everywhere in space, but you need a receiver tuned to the correct frequency to receive the signal and listen to the broadcasts. Similarly, the energy of the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Saints is powerful, and you must use your receiver, that is, your practice of self-reliance, or your vow to receive that energy. Therefore, self-reliance is crucial. Without any self-reliance, you cannot benefit from the energy of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Reciting the Buddha's name, practicing walking meditation, and practicing mindfulness are ways to place yourself within the energy field of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to receive their immense energy. The Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are not imaginary deities; These are flesh-and-blood people who have lived and are living around you, people who have suffered, practiced, and escaped from that suffering. Therefore, whenever you cultivate mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom and direct your attention towards their energy, you will receive that energy. Through self-effort, you receive external power, and external power embraces self-effort; thus, external power and self-effort depend on each other to exist.

In short, repentance means not wanting to repeat past mistakes or create new ones, and making a vow is the desire or decision to let go of regrets or remorse about the past, and anxieties and fears about the future. There are times when you live clinging to the past, wondering why the sun was more beautiful in the past, why life was more beautiful in the past than it is now. That is the mindset of those who cling to the past, not believing that life in the present moment is also beautiful and worth living. That attitude is not the attitude of a mindful person. There are also times when you think that happiness can only be found in the future. You chase after happiness in the future. That is another extreme that you need to let go of. Your practice is to dwell in the present moment bliss. The first principle is to return to living in the present moment. If you can return to the present moment, with body and mind in oneness, then you will connect with the wonders of life present in that moment.

The sun still shines brightly, the sky is still blue, the birds still sing, and the miracles of life still exist within you and around you. When you return to the present moment, you connect with life. You must do this in every moment of your daily life. This is not a promise. Sitting in the temple, you must experience peace and happiness while sitting there. When eating, you must experience peace while eating. Whether preparing breakfast for the community or washing dishes, you must be present in those moments to transform them into joy. Every day must be a celebration, every hour of daily life must be a time to praise and celebrate life, and happiness will be present immediately. Connecting with life is your method. You connect with life while meditating, while walking in meditation, washing dishes, cooking, doing laundry, while breathing, while speaking, and laughing. Every moment, you connect with life. This is something you can achieve, provided you let go of the past, your fears, anxieties, and hopes for the future. Only when the present is overwhelmingly painful do you hope for the future. If you are happy in the present, you don't need to yearn for a future. Abandoning the present is abandoning life, because life exists only in the present moment. To achieve success, you must repent, meaning you must bravely face reality to resolve all your problems, and you must also make a vow, meaning you must strive to accomplish what you feel is necessary. Then, the results will surely come.