IT IS IMPORTANT TO REPENT; REPENTANCE HELPS TO MITIGATE NEGATIVE KARMA AND ELEVATE OUR STATE OF MIND
Caller: Master, I would like to seek repentance. I used to work in a hotel before I started practising Buddhism. Our main responsibilities included environmental monitoring and safeguarding the spare keys of the hotel. Whenever I was scheduled for night duty, I would access the hotel’s kitchen with the spare keys to steal some food to eat. I would consume food like beef, lobsters, chicken and many other non-vegetarian foods. In addition to stealing food to eat, I would also pack some food back home for my parents.
Now that I have started practising Buddhism, I realised how foolish I was. Apart from committing the act of stealing, I had also invariably committed the act of killing and consumption of live seafood. I had created lots of bad karma, and made lots of mistakes in the past. I am deeply sorry for what I did, for being so lacking in my cultivation and for being selfish. I would like to seek Master and Guan Yin Bodhisattva’s forgiveness.
Master Jun Hong Lu: Under such circumstances, once you have repented, your karmic retributions would be lessened. This is the reason why it is so important to repent. While you were repenting, I could see that your karmic retributions had lessened. Therefore, I was laughing earlier, understand? In fact, to be more precise, what you did was taking without permission. As Buddhist practitioners, we should not take what’s not rightfully ours.
In reality, such an act is prevalent everywhere. With an elevated state of mind, you are now able to discern that it is wrong to do so. Therefore, after a person has repented, he will acquire a higher state of mind.
Caller: Yes, now that I have started cultivating, I realised that I was really foolish in the past. I was ignorant, and kept making mistakes and creating negative karma for myself. After practising Buddhism, I realised that life is akin to treading on thin ice, as we have to be extremely careful with everything we do.
Master Jun Hong Lu: That’s correct.
Source: Wenda20170820A 49:43, Master Jun Hong Lu’s call-in radio program
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