Selected verses from The Bodhicharyavatara Chapter 2: Confession by Shantideva
Enlightened ones and all your Bodhisattva heirs,
I offer you my body throughout all my lives.
Supremne courageous ones accept me totally.
For with devotion I will be your slave.
To perfect Buddhas and to Bodhisattvas,
In all directions where they may reside,
To them who are the sovereigns of great mercy,
I press my palms together, praying thus:
"In this and all my other lives,
While turning in the round without beginning,
Blindly I have brought forth evil,
And incited others to commit the same.
"Deceived and overmastered by my ignorance,
I have taken pleasure in such sin,
And seeing now the blame of it,
O Great Protectors, I confess it earnestly!
"Whatever I have done against the Triple Gem,
Against my parents, teachers and the rest,
Through force of my defilements,
In my body, speech and mind,
"All the evil I, a sinner, have committed,
All the wicked deeds that cling to me,
The frightful things that I contrived
I openly declare to you, the teachers of the world.
"It may be that death will come to me
Before my evil has been cleansed.
How then can I be freed from it?
I pray you, kindly grant me your protection.
We cannot trust the wanton Lord of Death.
The task complete, or still to do, he will not wait.
In health or sickness, therefore, none of us can trust,
Our fleeting, momentary lives.
And we must pass away, forsaking all.
But I, devoid of understanding,
Have, for sake of friend and foe alike,
Provoked and brought about so many wrongs.
But all my foes will cease to be,
And all my friends will cease to be,
And I will also cease to be,
And likewise everything will cease to be.
All that I possess and use
Is like the fleeting vision of a dream.
It fades into the realms of memory,
And fading will be seen no more.
And even in the brief course of this present life,
So many friends and foes have passed away,
Because of whom, the evils I have done
Still lie, unbearable before me.
The thought came never to my mind
That I too am a brief and passing thing.
And so, through hatred, lust and ignorance,
I have committed many sins.
Never halting night or day,
My life drains constantly away,
And from no other source does increase come.
How can there not be death for such as me?
There I'll be, prostrate upon my bed,
And all around, my family and friends.
But I alone shall be the one to feel
The cutting of the thread of life.
And when the heralds of the Deadly King have gripped me,
What help to me will be my friends and kin?
For then life's virtue is my one defense,
And this, alas, is what I shrugged away.
O Protectors! I, so little heeding,
Hardly guessed at horror such as this -
And all for this bried, transient existence,
I have done so many evil things.
The day they take him to the scaffold,
Where they will tear off his limbs,
A man is changed, transfigured by his fear:
His mouth is dry, his eyes start from his brow.
No need to say how stricken I shall be
When overcome and sick with dreadful fear,
I'm siezed by forms so horrible to see,
The frightful servants of the Lord of Death
Who can give me safe protection
From this horror, from this frightful dread?
And then I'll search the four directions,
Seeking help with panic-stricken eyes.
But in those four directions no protection shall I find.
And I shall sink into despairing woe.
No refuge will there be for me;
At such a time, what shall I do ?
Thus, from this day forward I take refuge
In the Buddhas, guardians of beings,
Who labor to protect all wanderers,
Those mighty ones who scatter all fear
And in the Dharma they have realized in their hearts,
Which drives away the terrors of samsara,
And in all the host of Bodhisattvas
Likewise I will perfectly take refuge.