Depraved thoughts are unrighteous ideations. To spring forth means to multiply and grow. Person and household stand for oneself and one’s family. The field of the mind is the inner heart and spiritual consciousness. Poisonous seedlings are karmic seeds of sin. When lustful musings awaken, vicious impulses proliferate. Reason fades, and incestuous and dishonorable acts may follow. One’s own person and family lose their good repute. Toxic karmic seeds take root, even passing baleful influences to later generations.
Karmic transgressions for ten thousand generations cling henceforth; countless transmigrations through successive aeons know no repose.
Ten thousand generations means lifetime after lifetime. To cling means to adhere and never release. Successive aeons are vast cycles of cosmic calamity. Sins persistently follow the soul across countless lives. Through cycle upon cycle of existence, retribution recurs without end. What a terrible fate!
Fortunately, one has strayed but a short way from the true path, discerning present rectitude and past faults.
Blessedly, having wandered astray only a short distance, one awakens to realize that former deeds were wrong and resolves to abide by the righteous path henceforth.
Those who aspire to sagehood shall grudge no sacrifice to amend their faults.
To grudge means to be miserly or slothful. Sages teach that amending one’s faults comes first. He who is neither miserly nor slothful in reforming himself is one who aspires to sagehood.
Thus, sins as vast as the heavens can be dissolved by a single act of repentance.
To be as vast as the heavens means to be immeasurably great. Even crimes as immense as heaven itself may be erased through sincere repentance and renewal.
Should those shrink from the hardship of reformation and seek idle ease, karmic guilt deepens day by day. Though they have tasted lust and refuse to let go, repentance is put off from this year unto the next.