Introduction

In our previous lives, while under the influence of deluded minds, we created a great deal of negative karma, and we also transgressed our commitments and incurred root and secondary downfalls. As a result, we now experience difficulties in developing faith and conviction in Dharma and in making progress on the stages of the path to enlightenment. Moreover, if we do not purify all this negativity while we have the chance, we shall have to experience great suffering in the future.

Any living being, even a worm or an insect, can commit negative actions, but only humans have the fortune to be able to purify them. We have been accumulating non-virtuous actions and experiencing their suffering results since beginningless time, but we now have the opportunity to purify them completely. We should make use of this precious opportunity to purify our negative karma, not to create more! Since purification is the root of future happiness and spiritual realizations we should strive to cleanse our mind of delusions and negative karma.

One of the best methods for purifying negativities and downfalls is the Mahayana Sutra of the Three Superior Heaps, otherwise known as The Bodhisattva's Confession of Moral Downfalls, or the Bodhisattva Mahayana Confession Sutra.