I am going to teach again today from another chapter of Shantideva’s The Way of the Bodhisattva. Once again, I will also briefly explain a bit about Shantideva. He was a 9th century Indian master from Nalanda monastery, one of the great monastic universities in India at that time. Nalanda was unfortunately destroyed during the Muslim invasions of the late 12th century. It was said that the library was so vast that it took several months to burn.

In any case, Shantideva was in residence at Nalanda during it’s heyday. However, he wasn’t known as a particularly hard working monk. The other monks nick-named him “Bu Ku Su” which means “He who eats, sleeps, and goes to the bathroom.” That’s all they thought he did. In fact, he slept through the day but then stayed up all night practicing.

The other monks finally decided to embarrass Shantideva by forcing him to teach. They hoped he would be so humiliated that he would leave the monastery. In fact, on the day he was to teach, they prepared a very high throne one which Shantideva was supposed to sit, but there were no steps to reach the top. However, when Shantideva arrived for the teaching, the monks were surprised to find that he had somehow gotten to the top of the throne. This got their attention.

Then Shantideva asked the assembled monks if they wanted him to teach something that had been taught before, or something new. The monks asked for something new, so he began to teach The Way of the Bodhisattva. All the monks were amazed. At one point, Shantideva began to levitate and rise higher and higher into the sky until he flew away. Miraculously, the monks could still hear his voice until he finished teaching the text.

It’s essentially an instruction manual for how to enter the path of the bodhisattva and how to achieve enlightenment. Last month, I taught from Chapter 6 on Patience. This time I will speak about Chapter 2 called “Confession.” This chapter also contains a lot about the Perfection of Generosity, one of the Six Perfections, which are generosity, morality, patience, diligence, concentration and wisdom. So today, I’ll talk about Confession, but this chapter also touches on the Perfection of Generosity.

Generosity is the first perfection and is the first one we are supposed to perfect. While we should pay attention to each of the perfections, it is taught that the later perfections are built upon the perfection of the preceding ones. So first we have to perfect generosity before we can perfect morality and so on.

Why this is the case isn’t always apparent. Why would we need to perfect generosity before perfecting morality? There doesn’t seem to be a direct connection between the two. But if we really think about it, morality is a kind of generosity. By restraining our actions that cause suffering, especially the suffering we cause others, we are considering their happiness. When we avoid selfish actions such as theft, lying and so on that we might mistakenly think will protect our own happiness, this is a kind of generosity. If we don’t care about the happiness of others, why would we try to avoid harming them? Thus, morality is first built upon the foundation of generosity.

Patience is then built upon the foundation of morality. Without learning to avoid actions of body, speech and mind that cause suffering for ourselves and others, we cannot have a calm mind. If we indulge our selfish impulses, such as lying, stealing, killing, cheating and so on, our minds will be agitated. We will constantly be worried about getting caught in our actions, and the mind will know no peace. Without some basic equanimity, how can we remain calm in the face of difficulties? We can’t. So now we can see how patience is rooted in morality, which is itself rooted in generosity.

As for generosity, there are many ways to practice it, morality being one. I’d like to read the opening verses of Shantideva’s poem to demonstrate another approach to generosity:

1. To the Buddhas, those thus gone, / And to the sacred Dharma, spotless and supremely rare, / And to the Buddha’s offspring, oceans of good qualities, / That I might gain this precious attitude, I make a perfect offering.

2. I offer every fruit and flower, / Every kind of healing draft, / And all the precious gems the world contains, / With all pure waters of refreshment;

3. Every mountain wrought of precious jewels, / All sweet and lonely forest groves, / The trees of paradise adorned with blossom, / Trees with branches bowed with perfect fruit;

4. The perfumed fragrance of divine and other realms, / All incense, wishing trees and trees of gems, / All crops that grow without the tiller’s care, / And every sumptuous object worthy to be offered;

5. Lakes and meres adorned with lotuses, / Delightful with the sweet-voiced cries of waterbirds, / And everything unclaimed and free / Extending to the margins of the boundless sky.

So far, Shantideva has described his offering. He offers it all to the Buddha, the Dharma and to “the Buddha’s offspring.” Of course, the Buddha did have a son before leaving the life of a householder and going off to the forest to meditate, but his son later became a monk and so did not have children of his own. The Buddha’s offspring are therefore the bodhisattvas--the Sangha--the community of the Buddha’s enlightened disciples. In other words, he is making this offering to the Three Jewels.

His offering is extensive and includes all the things people think are precious, such as jewels, delicious food, natural wonders and so on. The fifth verse contains an interesting line. Shantideva offers “everything unclaimed and free” throughout all space. If there is anything that does not belong to someone already, Shantideva offers it to the Three Jewels. Of course, this isn’t an actual, physical offering. This is a mental offering. Shantideva was the son of a king from Southern India, but he gave up his personal wealth when he became a monk. So he wasn’t rich enough to actually give all this. No one on earth could be rich enough to own everything else throughout all space that was previously unclaimed.

Then, of course, there is the fact that enlightened beings lack physical bodies unless they decide, in order to benefit others, that they need to take one temporarily. So enlightened beings don’t need food and jewels and things like that. The point is that Shantideva is letting go of all attachment to worldly things and wealth and is trying to cultivate a mind filled with generous intention. Mental offerings are a great way to do this, especially if we don’t have any actual physical offerings or wealth to give.

Shantideva goes on to imagine an offering of what we might call a beautiful spa--a bathing chamber worthy of the greatest emperors who have ever lived. This bathing chamber is filled with wonderful scents and music. He imagines offering the best clothing and perfumes and on and on.... Mountains of offerings he imagines.

One way we can practice such mental offerings is to imagine wonderful things, like Shantideva has in these verses. In fact, we can simply read these verses as a prayer and try to imagine the offerings described here in our minds. Or, any time we see something wonderful, like a beautiful sunset, we can offer this beauty to all enlightened beings. If we see children laughing, we can wish that joy be experienced by all sentient beings. Any good experience can become an offering.

If we receive a gift or purchase something new, we can mentally offer it as well before we use it ourselves. If you have an altar at home with an image of a Buddha, kneel before the altar and place the offering on it, or just hold it up in front of you. Then simply say, “I offer this to the Three Jewels.” Perhaps with your mind you can imagine that you are actually handing it to the Buddha or placing it at his feet. These are all easy ways to accumulate merit.

Remember that merit, or positive karma, is required to create the karma to be able to pursue the Dharma, not to mention our worldly goals. Without accumulating merit, our negative karma will simply pull us down into lower realms of existence. Even if we are born again as a human being, we won’t be able to achieve our goals and we may not meet the Dharma again.

Of course, actual offerings, freely given also generate merit and are required for the Dharma to continue. It is said that any offering made to a monastery or nunnery will continue to generate merit as long as that monastery or nunnery continues. Because by supporting the monastery or nunnery now, you help build the foundation for the Dharma to continue to be available to all who come into contact with that monastery and the monks and nuns trained there who teach the Dharma. Some monasteries have been around for centuries. The merit generated by those who helped to build and support them must be vast.

Shantideva then turns his attention to confession:

27. To perfect Buddhas and to Bodhisattvas, / In all directions where they may reside, / To them who are the sovereigns of great mercy, / I press my palms together, praying thus:

28. “In this and all my other lives, / While turning in the round without beginning, / Blindly I have brought forth evil, / And incited others to commit the same.

29. “Deceived and overmastered by my ignorance, / I have taken pleasure in such sin, / And seeing now the blame of it, / O great protectors, I confess it earnestly!

30. “Whatever I have done against the Triple Gem, / Against my parents, teachers, and the rest, / Through force of my defilements, / In my body, speech, and mind,

31. “All the evil I, a sinner, have committed, / All the wicked deeds that cling to me, / the frightful things that I contrived / I openly declare to you, the teachers of the world.

32. “It may be that my death will come to me / Before my evil has been cleansed. / How then can I be freed from it? / I pray you, quickly grant me your protection.”

This is perhaps the most complete prayer of confession I have seen. Before all the enlightened ones he announces all his evil deeds. There is no need to list them all. Even in just this one life there are too many to count! And certainly we can’t remember anything we did in a past life, good or bad. The important thing when practicing confession is to recognize that we have done much wrong. We then try to strongly imprint upon our minds the intention to avoid such wrongdoing in the future. It’s like turning your car hard to the left or right to avoid an accident. Through confession, we are trying to forcefully point our minds in a new direction away from engaging in the causes of suffering and towards the peace of mind that comes from perfect wisdom and compassion.

Confession is not about dredging up all our past wrongs and beating ourselves up over them. We aren’t trying to convince ourselves that we are horrible people. Self loathing is actually no different than great pride as they are both extremes of self-centeredness. “I’m so terrible,” “I’m so worthless.” Do you see how the focus is on oneself? If we focus on how horrible we are--or think we are--we ignore the needs of others. This is not compassionate. It is also not compassion to hate ourselves. When we pray for all sentient beings, when we say that we are studying and practicing the Dharma for the benefit of all sentient beings, we are included. We are also suffering sentient beings who need compassion.

In the last line of verse 32 above, Shantideva writes: “I pray you, quickly grant me your protection.” It’s important to point out that buddhas and bodhisattvas aren’t magical beings who somehow prevent us from experiencing our own negative karma. If the enlightened ones could do so, they would have destroyed samsara, this realm of suffering, aeons ago and given us all enlightenment. Obviously, that hasn’t happened. In actuality, enlightened beings protect us by teaching the Dharma and inspiring us along the path. By learning the Dharma and following in the example of the Buddha and his disciples, we overcome the ignorance that plagues our minds. By overcoming ignorance, we change the way we think, speak and behave. In other words, we begin to see the world in accordance with the Dharma and then act accordingly. The result is that we cause less suffering for ourselves and others. This is how the enlightened beings ultimately protect us.

The verses continue:

33. We cannot trust the wanton Lord of Death. / The task complete or still to do, he will not wait. / In health or sickness, therefore, none of us can trust / Our fleeting, momentary lives.

34. And we must pass away, forsaking all. / But I, devoid of understanding, / Have, for sake of friend and foe alike, / Provoked and brought about so many wrongs.

35. But all my foes will cease to be, / And all my friends will cease to be, / And I will also cease to be, / And likewise everything will cease to be.

38. The thought came never to my mind / That I too am a brief and passing thing. / And so, through hatred, lust, and ignorance, / I have committed many sins.

Shantideva is impressing upon us the impermanence of all things, including us. It is said that from the moment of our birth, we are flying like an arrow toward the target of our death. We don’t like to consider our own mortality, though, do we? It is inevitable that all things that come together will eventually come apart. Meeting ends in parting and birth ends in death. The only way out of this cycle of birth, old age, sickness and death is enlightenment--to become a buddha.

In the course of living these temporary lives, though, we engage in all kinds of crazy, stupid, cruel things in order to selfishly protect our own happiness. The result is that we suffer a great deal and create the causes for more suffering in the future. In other words, we create bad karma.

Even if we know that we have created bad karma, we don’t do much about it. This is what confession is all about. We call to mind our negative thoughts, words and deeds and commit ourselves to not engage in them again. First, remember that part of our bad karma is to strengthen the tendency to engage in similar bad actions again in the future. So if we strongly, deeply imprint upon the mind the commitment to not do so, we can change our future karma somewhat.

In addition, by confessing our wrongdoing, we also lessen the strength of the result of our previous actions. The problem is that we don’t do enough confession, or we put off doing so. The fact is, the longer we wait to try and purify our negative karma, the more deeply rooted it becomes and the more difficult it is to purify. If we catch a bad action immediately and confess it right away, that is a more powerful confession that if we wait.

Think of it like spilling grape juice on brand new, white carpet. If we spill grape juice on white carpet, we don’t notice it and then decide to relax and watch T.V. and think, “Oh, well. I’ll take care of it later.” No! We jump up, run for the cleaning supplies and try to prevent a stain from setting in. With our negative karma, we can do the same. If we confess right away--that is, if we bring to mind instantly the knowledge that we have created negative causes, we can prevent a karmic stain from setting in.

This is what Shantideva is getting at. We have to do something about our negative karma now, not later. He also point out that death will come, whether we think we’re ready or not. We can’t put off until tomorrow what needs to be done today. What if we think, “Yes, I’ve done some wrong things, but I’ll practice later to purify my karma,” but then we die. We have wasted the opportunity in this life to purify or at least diminish the effect of our karma. It will then follow us into the next life.

And remember, it’s not only the result of that action that we’ll have to face, but we will also have strengthened our bad habits, so we’ll simply repeat the same kind of mistake again in the future, creating more negative karma that will lead to more suffering. This is why Shantideva stresses our mortality. He’s trying to get us to snap to it and stop procrastinating in our practice, especially the practice of confession.

Shantideva then goes on to engage in the practice of confession:

62. How instead can I make sure / To rid myself of evil, only cause of sorrow? / This should be my one concern, / My only thought both night and day.

63. The wrongs that I have done / Through ignorant stupidity: / All actions evil by their nature / And transgressions of the precepts,

64. Fearing all the pains to come / I join my palms and ceaselessly prostrate, / And everything I will confess / Directly in the sight of my protectors.

65. I pray you, guides and guardians of the world, / To take me as I am, a sinful man. / And all these actions, evil as they are, / I promise I will never do again.

“Actions evil by their nature,” refers to the ten non-virtuous actions of killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, divisive speech, harsh speech, idle chatter, covetousness, harmful intent, and holding false views. These are actions that are harmful in and of themselves, either because they directly cause suffering or, as with idle chatter, they distract us from the path. “Transgressions of the precepts,” refers to breaking others vows or precepts which are designed to help us progress upon the path. Shantideva confesses all of it.

He then talks about prostrating--bowing, like we do in our confession ceremony, Sam Hoi. We do this either in front of a statue or other image of the Buddha and other enlightened beings or by visualizing them in our minds. He ends the chapter by saying the most important thing, “I promise I will never do [these things] again.” I’ve already discussed that above.

Well more than a thousand years have passed since Shantideva wrote this text, and we still do this practice of confession. This is because this is a powerful practice recognized by all the Buddhist masters for countless generations that can help us overcome our ignorance and live a life in which we cause less suffering for ourselves and others.