這篇論文調查從第六世紀起一個中國佛教在家眾所創的懺悔儀式。他們在涅槃經的基礎上，混和懺悔、念佛的儀式，主張如此可以成佛。解脫滅罪的教義、功效與進行的方式記載在《大通方廣懺悔滅罪莊嚴成佛經》，此部經被所有的經錄指摘為「疑經」甚至為「偽經」。然而這部經深受在家信徒歡迎，以致它的教義滲入中國、韓國與日本各宗派佛教中。更有趣的是此經翻譯成藏文，被西藏佛教視為真經。這篇論文從三個方面檢驗這部佛經：成書時間、內容與教義的傳布。同時闡明此經宣稱此經解脫之功能，又排斥其他佛經具有解脫之功能。

This paper investigates a new confessional ceremony held by Chinese Buddhist lay devotees since the sixth century in a small group. They believed that by way of confession and chanting of a series of names of Buddhas, one could be emancipated from the endless transmigratory cycles chained in sins unknowingly made in the past. The efficacy of this ceremony and its procedure was claimed and described in a text, Sutra on Solemn Attainment of Buddhahood by Means of Repentance To Extinguish Sins in A Great, Thorough and Broaden Way, or 大通方廣懺悔滅罪莊嚴成佛經. All Chinese Buddhist catalogues have ascribed this Buddhist text to be apocryphal. Yet, this confessional ceremony was so popular that many tenets in this text infiltrated into contemporary and later Chinese, Korean and Japanese Buddhism. More interesting is that this text was translated into Tibetan, and Tibetan Buddhism regards it to be an “authentic” work taught by the Buddha. The paper examines this confessional ceremony by analyzing the text from three perspectives: dating, content, and doctrinal origination and transmission, while arguing that the ceremony presents a new ethos in Chinese Buddhist lay tradition in its argumentative discourse of achieving emancipation that
completely denies the soteriological efficacy of other Buddhist sutras.