Before you start the actual practice, you should generate a strong feeling for wanting to purify by thinking along these lines: ‘‘The purpose of my life is to free all sentient beings from all their suffering and bring them to full enlightenment. To do this, I myself must first achieve enlightenment, so I must actualize the steps of the path to enlightenment. Therefore, I need to purify all my defilements, negative karmas and downfalls.’’
Generate regret. First recall the definition of negative karma— any action that results in suffering, usually an action motivated by ignorance, attachment or aversion—and think, ‘‘Almost every action I do, twenty-four hours a day, is motivated by worldly concern, attachment to the comfort of this life. It is like this from birth to death in this life and has been like that from beginningless rebirths. Nearly every action I have ever created has been nonvirtuous, the cause of suffering. Not only that, but continuously I have also been breaking my pratimoksha, bodhisattva and tantric vows. Worst of all, I have created the heaviest of negative karmas in relation to my virtuous friends—getting angry at them, not believing what they say, having non-devotional thoughts towards them, harming their holy body and disobeying their advice.
Having these negative imprints on my mental continuum is unbearable. It’s as if I’ve swallowed a lethal poison. I must practice the antidote right away and purify all this negative karma immediately, without a second’s delay.’’
Think of the lower realms, of the hell realms. ‘‘If I were now in a hell realm, how would it be? I would be totally overwhelmed by suffering, by the heaviest suffering of samsara. I would have no freedom to practice Dharma.’’
Then think, ‘‘Even though I’m not dead yet, my death could happen at any moment. At any moment, I could be there in the most terrifying hell realm, the unbearable suffering state. Therefore, without even a second’s delay, I must purify all my defilements, all my negative karmas, all my downfalls. Therefore, I’m going to do prostrations with the meditation-recitation of the Thirty-five Buddhas, The Confession of Downfalls, to cause all sentient beings to receive all happiness up to that of enlightenment; in other words, to benefit all sentient beings.’’
With such thoughts, generate a strong feeling of urgency and regret. Your attitude should be one of wishing to purify yourself, but at the end, expand your attitude to include others with the wish to benefit all sentient beings by bringing them all happiness up to that of enlightenment. With the strong wish to purify yourself in order to benefit others, you then do the prostrations. Even if you do just a few prostrations, if they are done with this strong thought of purifying yourself in order to benefit others, each prostration and recitation of each of the Thirty-five Buddhas’ names becomes extremely powerful.