Chapter 3 – The Chapter on Confession
The Bodhisattva Ruciraketu then slept. In a dream he saw a golden drum(1), a drum made of gold shedding light everywhere like the disc of the sun. In all directions, he saw immeasurably, incalculably many buddhas sitting at the feet of jewelled trees on lion thrones made of lapis lazuli. They were all teaching the Dharma, each one surrounded by an assembly numbering many hundreds of thousands. He saw a man who looked like a brahmin beating the drum, and heard the verses of confession given here issuing forth from the sound it made.
When the Bodhisattva Ruciraketu awoke, he still remembered those verses of confession. As soon as it was morning, he set out for the great city of Rājagṛha along with many thousands of other sentient beings. When he arrived at Vulture’s Peak, he approached the Blessed One, placed his head at the Blessed One’s feet in worship, circumambulated him three times, keeping him to his right, and sat down at one side.
The Bodhisattva Ruciraketu bowed to the Blessed One with folded hands, and spoke the verses of confession he had heard in his dream coming from the sound of the drum. (2)
During the night I dreamed, but was still alert.
I saw a drum shedding brilliant golden light everywhere.
It shone everywhere like a flaming sun,
shedding its light in the ten directions. I saw buddhas everywhere.
They were sitting at the feet of jewelled trees on thrones made of lapis lazuli,
surrounded by assemblies numbering many hundreds of thousands.
I saw someone who looked like a brahmin beating the drum.
While he was striking it, these verses could be heard.
By the drum of supreme golden light may suffering be relieved in the billion worlds –
the suffering of the lower states of existence,
the suffering of the Realm of Yama(3),
and the suffering of poverty in this world.
By the sound of this drum
may all misfortune in the world be relieved.
May the hearts of living beings everywhere be uninjured,
like those of the great fearless sages who have pacified their fear. (4)
May sentient beings become oceans of good qualities,
attaining the good qualities of samādhi and of the seven factors of awakening,
just like the great sages who know everything about samsara
and who have attained every good and noble quality.
By the sound of this drum
may all living beings have the voice of Brahmā.
May they obtain the ultimate and highest awakening of buddhahood
and set the wheel of the pure Dharma in motion.
May they remain for inconceivably many eons,
teaching the Dharma for the benefit of the world.
May they destroy the defilements, extinguish suffering,
and pacify greed, hatred, and delusion.
May those who are in lower states of existence,
their limbs aflame with blazing fire,
hear the sound of this drum
and find the words “Homage to the Buddha”.
May all living beings remember their previous births,
hundreds of them, thousands of millions of them.
May they always bear the great sages in mind
and listen to their exalted words.
By the sound of this drum may they always encounter buddhas,
avoid evil actions and perform good, pure acts.
May the heartfelt wishes of men, titans, and all sentient beings
all be fulfilled by the sound of this drum.
There are living beings who have ended up in dreadful hells,
their limbs aflame with blazing fire,
wandering about helplessly, afflicted by sorrow.
May their fires go out. (5)
May those living beings who are suffering dreadfully, horribly
in the hells, amongst the hungry ghosts, and in the human world
have all their suffering relieved
by the sound of this drum.
For those who have no protection,
no way out, and no refuge,
may I be their protection and their refuge,
the best of all refuges.
In all the worlds in the ten directions,
the buddhas are the best of creatures with two feet.
May they watch over me
with minds of compassion and mercy.
Standing before the one who possesses the ten powers
(6)
I will confess
all of the horrible, evil things
I have done in the past.
The evil I have done
by mistreating my parents,
by not understanding the buddhas,
and by not understanding what is skilful;
the evil I have done
because I was intoxicated with power,
intoxicated with privilege,
or intoxicated with youth;
the evil I have done
by thinking badly, speaking badly,
and acting badly,
or by not seeing my faults;
the evil I have done
by thinking in an immature way,
my mind darkened by ignorance,
and influenced by evil friends;
the evil I have done
when my mind was bewildered by the defilements,
influenced by amusements and pleasures, by sorrow and rage,
or because of an unsatisfied lust for wealth;
the evil I have done
by associating with dishonourable people,
because I was filled with jealousy and envy,
or because I was wicked or impoverished;
the evil I have done
when misfortune was upon me
and, struck by fear,
I was unable to master my desires;
the evil I have done
under the influence of a disturbed mind,
under the influence of desire or anger,
or because I was tormented by hunger and thirst;
the evil I have done
for the sake of food and drink
for the sake of clothes, because of women,
or because I was afflicted by many different kinds of defilements;
all of this evil of body, speech, and mind
that I have heaped up by acting badly,
and anything else of this kind I may have done,
I confess it all.
Whatever disrespect
I may have shown to buddhas,
to the Dharma, or to śrāvakas,
I confess it all.
Whatever disrespect
I may have shown to solitary buddhas
or to bodhisattvas,
I confess it all.
Whatever disrespect
I may have shown to those who proclaim the Dharma,
or to other good people,
I confess it all.
Any time I may have unknowingly rejected the true Dharma,
and whatever disrespect
I may have shown to my parents,
I confess it all.
The evil I have done because of my foolishness and immaturity,
because I was filled with arrogance and pride,
or because of greed, hatred, or delusion,
I confess it all.
I will worship those who possess the ten powers
in worlds in the ten directions.
I will rescue all living beings
in the ten directions from all their suffering.
I will help all the inconceivably many living beings
to attain the tenth stage.
When they have attained it,
may they all become tathāgatas.
May I practise for millions of eons
in order to benefit every single living being
until I am able to liberate them all
from the ocean of suffering.
May I teach those living beings
this profound confession,
the Supreme Golden Light
which destroys all karma.
If one illuminates this teaching even once,
the effects of evil, horrible actions
performed thoughout thousands of eons
will be destroyed.
When I have taught this confession to others,
this beautiful Supreme Golden Light
which can quickly eliminate the effects of one’s previous actions
that are now obstacles blocking the way,
I will attain the tenth stage,
that jewel-mine of ten different kinds of jewels.
May I shine with the good qualities of the buddhas,
and save living beings from the ocean of cyclic existence.
May I fill the vast, deep buddha-ocean,
that ocean of good qualities and omniscience,
with the inconceivable
good qualities of the buddhas.
May I become one of those who possesses the ten powers,
with hundreds of thousands of samādhis,
inconceivable dhāraṇīs,
and all the faculties, powers, and factors of awakening.
May the buddhas keep a close eye on me
and watch over me.
May they forgive my faults
with minds of compassion.
Because of the evil I have done in the past, throughout hundreds of eons,
my mind is troubled, filled with misery, sorrow, and fear.
With a wretched mind, I live in constant fear
of the effects of those evil actions, and wherever I go I can find no joy.
The buddhas are all compassionate,
they remove the fears of all living beings.
May they forgive my faults
and liberate me from fear.
May the tathāgatas take away for me
the impurities of actions based on the defilements
and may the buddhas cleanse me
with the waters of compassion.
I confess all the evil I have done in the past,
and I confess all my present evil.
I vow that in the future I will refrain from acting badly,
and I do not conceal any evil I may have done.
I have acted badly in the three ways using my body, in the four ways using my voice,
and in the three ways using my mind – I confess all of it.
With my body, speech, and mind I have acted badly
in these ten ways – I confess all of it.
May I abandon the ten kinds of unskilful action
and practise the ten kinds of skilful action.
I will attain the tenth stage.
May I become the best of those with the ten powers.
Standing before the buddhas
I confess all the evil things
I have done,
which all have painful consequences.
I rejoice in any skilful action performed by anyone
in this world or another world.
Whatever merit I have built up with my body, speech, and mind,
may I use those roots of virtue to attain supreme awakening.
All of the horrible, evil things I have done
under the pressure of life, or because of thinking in an immature way –
standing before the ones with the ten powers
I confess all of this evil.
I confess all of the evil I have heaped up
under the pressure of birth,
under the pressure of all kinds of pleasures,
under the pressure of cyclic existence,
under the pressure of the world,
under the pressure of an agitated mind,
under the pressure of the defilements caused by my foolishness and immaturity,
under the pressure of the company of evil friends,
under the pressure of fear,
under the pressure of desire,
under the pressure of hatred,
under the pressure of the darkness of ignorance,
under the pressure of the moment,
under the pressure of time,
or under the pressure of acquiring merit.
I confess all of this evil.
I worship the buddhas, who are wonderful oceans of good qualities,
shining golden like Mount Meru.
I go to those victorious ones for refuge,
and bow my head to them all.
The Buddha is golden, shining with pure golden light.
His perfect, beautiful eyes are the colour of flawless lapis lazuli.
He is a mine blazing with incandescent fame and glory.
He is a buddha-sun, dispelling the darkness with rays of compassion.
He is pure and brilliant, with a magnificent body,
a fully awakened sun whose physical features have the clarity of pure gold.
The sage is like the moon whose beams are refreshing water
to those whose minds are consumed by the conflagration of the defilements.
He has the thirty-two physical characteristics and his sense organs are delightful.
His magnificent body scintillates with the eighty minor features.
He is like a sun in the darkness of the three worlds,
his glorious merit blazing forth like a great profusion of sunbeams.
Great Sage, your body is like silver, crystal and copper.
Like the sun, you illuminate the world
with a great profusion of rays of light of many different colours –
the magnificent blue of flawless lapis lazuli, and the coppery red of the dawn.
For living beings who have fallen
into the river of samsara,
into the midst of the torrent of misfortune,
the waters of death, the ocean of suffering,
that most harsh and violent flood,
overwhelmed by sorrow and buffeted by the waves of old age,
the Sugata evaporates it all
with a great profusion of rays of light.
I worship the Buddha, whose body shines with the splendour of gold,
illuminating everything with golden radiance,
a mine of knowledge, the best in the three worlds,
whose exquisite body is adorned with scintillating characteristics.
Just as the water in the ocean is immeasurable,
just as the dust of the earth is endless,
just as the rocks of Mount Meru are endless,
just as the sky is endless,
so too the good qualities of the Buddha are endless.
No living being could understand them all.
Even if you pondered and reflected for a great many eons,
you still wouldn’t be able to understand the extent of his good qualities.
If you spent eons investigating the earth
with its hills, its mountains, and its oceans,
then in the end
you would be able to understand it.
You could even work out how many drops of water the size of the tip of a hair
there are in the ocean,
but you still wouldn’t be able to understand
the extent of the Buddha’s good qualities.
May all living beings have the good qualities, the appearance,
the glory, and the fame of the Buddha.
May their bodies be adorned with the thirty-two beautiful characteristics
and ornamented with the eighty minor features.
By means of this skilful act
may I soon become a buddha in this world.
May I teach the Dharma for the benefit of all
and liberate living beings who are suffering terribly.
May I vanquish Māra and his mighty armies
and set the wheel of the pure Dharma in motion.
May I remain for incalculable eons
satisfying the hunger of living beings with the nectar of the deathless.
May I accomplish the six supreme perfections
just as the victorious ones of the past accomplished them.
May I destroy the defilements, extinguish suffering,
and pacify greed, hatred, and delusion.
May I always remember my previous births,
hundreds of them, thousands of millions of them.
May I continually recollect the great sages
and listen to their exalted words.
By means of this skilful act
may I always be in the company of the buddhas,
may I abandon all evil actions
and practise pure and skilful actions.
May all the suffering of all the sentient beings
in all places in the world be pacified.
May those living beings whose senses are defective and whose bodies are deficient
obtain fully functioning senses and fit, whole bodies.
May all those beings in the ten directions
who are sick, weak, injured, or defenceless
be swiftly liberated from their sickness
and become strong and healthy, with functioning senses.
May all those living beings who are being threatened or killed
by kings, thieves, or bandits,
those who are suffering misfortunes,
and are afflicted by many hundreds of different kinds of fear,
suffering greatly because of
the misfortune they have encountered,
all be liberated
from those hundreds of most dreadful kinds of fear.
May those who are suffering from being beaten or tied up,
those who are affected by any kind of misfortune,
those who are overwhelmed by many thousands of troubles,
and those who are afflicted by terrible sorrow and all kinds of fear,
all be liberated from their bonds.
May those who are being beaten be liberated from being beaten.
May those who have been killed be returned to life,
and may those who have encountered misfortune all be free from fear.
May those who are suffering from hunger and thirst
obtain all kinds of food and drink.
May the blind see all kinds of forms
and the deaf hear soothing sounds.
May those who are naked obtain all kinds of clothes,
and may those living beings who are poor obtain a great abundance
of treasures, wealth, and riches, and all kinds of jewels.
May all living beings be happy.
May no-one experience any unpleasant feeling whatsoever,
and may all living beings be beautiful.
May they forever have delightful, handsome, pleasing bodies
and an abundance of different kinds of happiness.
May they have food and drink, great prosperity and merit,
as soon as the thought appears in their minds.
May they have lutes, drums, cymbals, and other instruments,
fountains and waterfalls, ponds filled with lotuses,
blue, golden, and red,
as soon as the thought appears in their minds.
May they have food and drink, clothes, wealth, money and gems,
gold, lapis lazuli, and all kinds of jewels.
May even the word suffering not be heard anywhere in the world.
May not even a single living being see anything unpleasant.
May all beings have an exalted appearance
and may they shed their radiance on each other.
Whatever good fortune there is in the human realm
may they obtain it as soon as they think of it.
As soon as the thought appears in their minds,
may their wishes be fulfilled through their merit and good karma.
May perfumes, garlands, ointments, clothes,
sandalwood, and all kinds of flowers
rain down from the trees morning, noon, and night.
May those living beings take them and rejoice.
May they worship all of the inconceivable
tathāgatas in the ten directions,
the bodhisattvas, the śrāvakas,
and the pure, unblemished, well-established Dharma.
May they avoid all of the lower states of existence
and escape the eight unfortunate kinds of rebirth.(7)
May they obtain the supreme king of rebirths
and always be in the company of the buddhas.
May they always be born into families of high status
and obtain a great abundance of stores of treasures, wealth, and riches.
May they be adorned with beauty,
glory, and fame for many eons.
May all women forever become
strong, heroic, learned men.
May they always practise for the sake of attaining awakening,
and may they practise the six perfections.
May they see the buddhas in the ten directions
sitting happily under wonderful jewelled trees,
seated on jewelled thrones made of lapis lazuli.
May they hear the Dharma being illuminated.
May all the evil actions I have done in the past
under the pressure of cyclic existence,
whatever evil actions I may have performed
that will have painful consequences, be completely destroyed.
May all those living beings in the bondage of cyclic existence,
firmly bound by the cords of samsara,
be liberated from their bonds by developing wisdom.
May they be liberated from suffering. May they become buddhas.
I rejoice in all the different kinds
of profound merit
created by living beings
in this world and in other worlds.
By rejoicing in others’ merit in this way,
and by the merit I have accumulated with body, speech, and mind,
may my heartfelt desires be fulfilled and be fruitful.
May I attain supreme, unblemished awakening.
Anyone who, with a pure, clear, spotless mind,
constantly worships and praises those with the ten powers,
and who transfers their merits in the way described here,
will avoid misfortune for sixty eons.
Whoever praises the Sage with folded hands,
and with the verses described here,
be they man or woman, brahmin or kṣatriya
will remember all of their previous births.
Wherever they are born,
all of their sense organs and all parts of their bodies will be beautiful.
They will have all kinds of merit and good qualities
and will be constantly worshipped as kings of men.
Anyone who hears this teaching
will not have acted skilfully in the presence of just one buddha,
nor two, nor four, nor five, nor ten.
They will have acted skilfully in the presence of thousands of buddhas.
This is the third chapter of the Supreme Golden Light, the Sovereign King of Sutras, the Chapter on Confession.
Notes
The text uses the words bherī and dundubhi interchangably, and I have translated both simply as “drum”. The entries on bherī and dundubhi on Oxford Music Online, both by Alastair Dick, define these two terms as follows:
bherī “Indian drum name that occurs in Sanskrit texts from the epic to the medieval period. The term has often been translated as ‘kettledrum’, but there appears to be no evidence for this type of drum in India before the Middle Ages. The bherī is described in medieval sources as a double-headed drum, probably barrel-shaped, about 72 cm long and 48 cm in diameter at the heads. The body was made of copper, the heads stretched on creeper hoops laced by rope, with a central cross-lacing. The drum was beaten on the right head by a stick and on the left by the hand. It was described as a battle drum with a majestic sound. Drums of this type are found in ancient Indian sculpture, sometimes borne on a pole carried on the shoulders of two men.” https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-4002275078 (accessed 01.10.19)
dundubhi “The most ancient known drum name of India, found in Sanskrit texts from the late 2nd millennium bce to about the 13th century ce. Its type has not been identified with certainty, but references throughout the period indicate a loud drum connected especially but not exclusively with war. The name is doubtless onomatopoeic.” https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-4002290866 (accessed 01.10.19)In Bagchi’s edition, this chapter is split in two. Chapter 3 is entitled “The Chapter on the Dream”, and ends here. Bagchi’s Chapter 4 has the same title as Nobel’s Chapter 3, “The Chapter on Confession”.
This refers to the state of being a hungry ghost.
The translation of this verse follows Bagchi. Nobel’s edition translates as follows:
May living beings be free of fear. May they attain the fearlessness
of the great fearless sages who have pacified their fear.There is a double meaning here, as the word used for “go out” in this metaphor, nirvāpaṇa, is closely related to the word nirvāṇa, which indicates a “going out” of the fires of greed, hatred and delusion. For more on fire metaphors in Buddhism see Richard Gombrich (2009), What the Buddha Thought, Ch.8.
One who possesses the ten powers, daśabala, is a synonym for a buddha. For a description of these ten powers, see the Mahāsīhanāda Sutta, MN.12.
These are: being reborn in hell, as an animal, as a hungry ghost, as a god, as a human being at a time without the Dharma, as a human being in a place without the Dharma, as a human being with an impaired mind, or as a human being without faith.