The Ten Directions Confession Liturgy FULL NAME IS
The Repentance Scripture of Supreme Lingbao Honoring the Heavenly Honored Ones Answering Calls in the Ten Directions
The original text bears no author’s name. Judging from its content and language, it was probably compiled between the Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty periods.
Originally consisting of ten scrolls, only the second and tenth scrolls survive in the current version of The Daozang (the authoritative collection of Taoist scriptures), which is categorized under ritual texts in the Dongxuan Division. Based on the structure of the two surviving scrolls, we can infer that each scroll of the original text was divided into three sections, and each section listed the titles of forty Heavenly Honored Ones and four Great True Immortals to be venerated.
The entire text contained thirty sections, with a total of "1,200 Compassionate Heavenly Honored Ones Answering Calls in the Ten Directions and 120 Great Compassionate True Immortals" paid homage to. The extant second scroll exhorts all beings to repent for various sins—including killing, the three karmic actions, and resentment—and to venerate the Heavenly Honored Ones and True Immortals, praying to cleanse away their karmic offenses.
The tenth scroll admonishes all beings to be filial to their parents, narrates the various karmic retributions and hellish torments that await unfilial people after death, and wishes that all beings may always have the intent to help others, cherish the aspiration to deliver all sentient beings, benefit others at their own expense, accumulate merits, and repent for their sins, so as to attain the Dao and become immortals.
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