Armidale Community Buddhist Centre

Seven-Limbed Practice

The seven parts of the practice are encompassed by two practices - the purification of negativities and the enhancing of the store of merit. When you engage in the practice, it is very important to understand that each and every one of the seven limbs has its individual purpose and significance, and only with such knowledge can you engage properly in the practice. The seven limbs are: prostration, offering, confession, rejoicing, requesting to turn the wheel of the dharma, entreating not to enter into nirvana, and dedication of merit.

...For the practice of confession, which is the third of the seven limbs, it is very important to have the factor of regret; without this factor there is no possibility of purifying the negativities.... The great yogi Milarepa said: "When I examined whether or not confession could purify the negativities, I found that it is regret that cleanses them." In order to generate regret, it is important to see the destructive nature of negative actions and also to understand the law of causality.

Based on a disciplined mind, we experience happiness; based on an undisciplined, untamed mind, we undergo suffering. We should think that if we are not able to make any progress from our present state of mind, which always indulges in negative thoughts, there is not much hope for us. So, if we are able to think in such terms, we will be able to really see the destructive nature of negative actions, and also that the store of negative actions that we have is inexhaustible, like a rich person's bank balance. Without the recognition of the destructive nature of the negative forces, we will never be able to develop the deep factor of regret from the depth of our hearts.

If we do not engage in a proper practice of dharma, it seems that we may expend all our store of merit in mundane pleasures. It is very important to have this faculty of regret in our practice of purification and confession.