English
The Qing Ming Festival is an important day for many Chinese to express filial piety and gratitude to their ancestors. Fo Guang Shan Temple of Toronto will hold its Ancestors Memorial Dharma Service in April. Join us to remember and honour our ancestors by participating in the recitation of the Compassionate Samadhi Water Repentance. All merits through chanting and repentance shall be dedicated and shared with our ancestors so that they may be reborn in the Pure Land.
The Compassionate Samadhi Water Repentance was composed by Ven. Zhixuan, at one time, was an imperial preceptor in the late Tang dynasty. According to the tale in the Preface, upon receiving a generous and expensive gift (a Dharma seat) from emperor Yizong (唐懿宗), a painful facial tumour grew on his knee. No doctor was able to treat his tumour. Recalling a past offer by a former friend, Kanaka (迦諾迦), Zhixuan went to the mountain in Pengzhou (彭州) to see him for help. After they met, Kanaka told Zhixuan to use the water in the stream below the cliff to wash the tumour. Zhixuan complied and the tumour disappeared.
With the firm faith that repentance could eradicate one‘s negative karma and advance one‘s practice of concentration and wisdom, he then composed this repentance ritual for people to repent if they want to expiate their transgression and lifetimes of karmic enmity.