The test continues in what the person does afterwards. The judge warns against treating a method of repentance as permission to offend, confess and offend again. Deliberate repetition adds to the wrongdoing. Honesty has to replace the lie, restraint has to replace the harmful act, and a good intention has to survive the next occasion of anger or temptation. Repentance is sustained through those changes in conduct. [5]
Dao Lan brings the promise of the book together in these terms: acknowledge the wrong sincerely, reform, do not repeat it, and help others turn away from harm. Under these conditions, he says, the door to hell closes. Lasting freedom from that suffering rests on ceasing to create its causes. The same impartial law that makes wrongdoing consequential also gives lasting reform its power. [1]
Notes
[1] Yinlü Wuqing, Dao Lan's postscript, ‘The Law Is Unrelenting and the Buddha Is Compassionate,’ on impartial causation, results across lives, and reform before a result has matured. Aṅguttara Nikāya 6.63, section 5, describes karma as intention expressed through body, speech and mind. [Source 1](https://origin.dhammatalks.org/suttas/AN/AN6_63.html)
[2] Yinlü Wuqing, vol. 2, ch. 19. The City God describes the underworld ruler's former vow, its mixture of good purpose and revenge, and the punishment attached to the harmful intention.
[3] Yinlü Wuqing, vol. 1, ch. 32, on the law governing compassionate rescue; vol. 2, ch. 8, on awakened beings who return by vow and are not constrained by ordinary fixed karma.
[4] Yinlü Wuqing, vol. 2, ch. 17, on personal favour, forgiveness and responsibility for cruelty towards a family member.
[5] Yinlü Wuqing, vol. 1, ch. 31, distinguishes sincere repentance from wanting to escape pain; ch. 28 describes the opportunity to hear Dizang teach. Vol. 2, ch. 17, warns against deliberately repeating wrongdoing while relying on repeated confession.
Life Continues
Bodily death brings a human life to an end, but in Yinlü Wuqing it does not bring the being's history to an end. Earlier conduct can bear fruit in another life, and new conduct continues to shape what follows. Birth and death are changes within this longer history. The life now being lived is one part of it.