Looking at the pic of myself when i was still a small boy, I see so much innocence, anybody, no matter how old or hedious they may look now, or how much wrongdoings (tempted to use the word sin, but there is no such thing as a 'sin' in buddhism) they might have done in their lives, they started off at the same spot, with the same pure and true heart, untainted by the lust, greed, delusions that this world has to offer.
This is analogous to what buddha has said about why we lost our true nature in the Surangama Sutra (愣严经）。 :
"Ananda, the first is the basic root of birth and death caused, since the time without beginning, by the wrong use of a clinging mind which people mistake for their own nature, and the second is their attachment to casual conditions (which taints) the basically bright essence of conciousness which is the fundamentally pure and clean substance of nirvanic enlightenment."
Babies are little buddhas, started off unpolluted, but inevitably falling deeper and deeper into the evil world of 5 pollutants (五浊恶世）. It takes tremendous courage, self discipline and faith to get one into change all this. being too deep in the mud, we tend to give ourselves excuses and justifications to make us feel better. Awakening might take eons, this is the lifetime to start.
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