Repentance ceremony on July 30th, Year of the Dragon

On Sep. 02nd, 2024 (July 30th, Year of the Dragon), good men and believing women inside and outside HCMC returned to Hoang Phap pagoda to attend a periodical penitential ritual.

Before the rite, Junior Thich Tam Duc, had a dharma talk named “In the mud there must be lotus seeds” to share with Buddhists.

The process of transformation is a cultivation. Repentance in Buddhism is not to eliminate karma, or erase sins but the Buddha's Dharma helps to purify consciousness and transform karma. The Buddha taught that there are two noble types of people in the world: People who never make mistakes; People who make mistakes but know how to correct and repent.

For a muddy pond to have lotuses that mud must contain lotus seeds; As humans, no one can avoid mistakes, but if we want to practice, within our mistakes must be the Bodhi seed, diligence. Thanks to that, we can transform our body and mind, step by step on the path to enlightenment.

No one is perfect until they have attained sainthood. The difference between a successful person and a failure is not necessarily in skills, knowledge or understanding, but more importantly in their will in life.

In Buddhism, there is a type of person that the Buddha always reminds His disciples to be extremely careful not to fall into, which is unfaithfulness/ Icchantika (destroying the Dharma and destroying the Sangha, extremely dangerous). In the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, chapter 24, the section on Bodhisattva Kasyapa, the Buddha explains clearly about sentient beings who fall into the unfaithfulness, which has lost five good roots of five powers, completely lacking in faith, diligence, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom.

He hopes Buddhists will strive to diligently practice and study. Having mistaken and repent in life, but we must never fall into the unbelievers, destroying the Dharma and Sangha, losing the five seeds of faith, diligence, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom, and then leaving the Buddha Dharma for thousands of millions of eons without meeting, hearing, or seeing the Triple Gem.

After the Dharma talk, the mass entered the penitential ritual as usual.

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