Hi,
I am looking at some books to use this time for our annual Jukai (Undertaking the Precepts) time of reflection on the Precepts, and one of the books I am considering is "Being Upright" by Reb Anderson Roshi of San Francisco Zen Center. One short chapter of the book includes discussion of the Verse of Atonement (
our version at Treeleaf begins "All harmful acts, words and thoughts, ever committed by me since of old ...) in which he says ...
The realization of the full, liberating function of formal confession must entail elements of regret and remorse.
I tend to be with Reb on this, and do not see any problem ... in fact, I feel it is a healthy thing ... to feel regret, remorse and a measure of self-chastisement (as opposed to self-disgust or loathing, as Reb contrasts) when we do wrong. What is so wrong with feeling bad for our bad and harmful actions? We don't have to beat and whip ourselves to extreme, but some balance of moderate regret and remorse seems fine, healthy ... even necessary to human morality. In Zen, we sometimes say that we don't call anyone (even ourselves) "bad people", but we do recognize that we sometimes commit bad acts through greed, anger and ignorance ... and I think we should not feel so good about doing so, and should feel the weight of our bad actions.
But, as I said, I think we need to "
atone" and "
at one", meaning that we can also toss our past bad acts into the cleansing wash of emptiness. No past acts to regret ... in fact, no past acts. Moderate regret and no regret ... at once, as one.
Please read the short chapter (5 Confession) and see how you feel.
http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=E...page&q&f=false
The jury is still out on the book, by the way.
Gassho, Jundo