The Real World

Merit, or puñña, is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the West. As the Buddha said, don’t be afraid of acts of merit. “Acts of merit” are another way of saying, “happiness.” You’re generous. You’re virtuous. You spread thoughts of goodwill to all beings. These are happy actions and there’s merit in doing them. They train the mind in the right direction. And there’s happiness at the same time.

When you dedicate merit, you’re hoping to share that happiness with others. Of course, happiness isn’t something you can take out of your heart and put into someone else’s heart. But often just the thought that you’re thinking of them makes them happy when they see you’re doing something good and dedicating the happiness to them. They approve of that. They’re happy about that. That becomes their happiness.

And of course, your merit isn’t decreased, your happiness isn’t decreased as you share it. The standard image is of having a lit candle in your hand, and there’s someone else whose candle is not lit. If you light their candle, the flame in your candle isn’t reduced. In fact, the light of two candles is making the world brighter than it was before.

So think of this as something that’s really pleasant to do. It’s good and happy at the same time. It’s like the kind of food that’s nutritious and delicious at the same time. And this is not make-believe.

I don’t know how many times people talk about leaving the monastery and going into the “real world”—as if the world in the monastery were make-believe. Actually, the goodness we do in the monastery is what’s really real. The goodness of the world outside is something that’s often made up. People get awards, and you wonder why they got the awards. Well, they had connections. People get wealthy. Why did they get wealthy? They had connections. It had nothing to do with any current merit on their part.

We see this all over. There are people who get wealthy by dishonest means, maintain their wealth by dishonest means. And the wealth itself: Is that really goodness? It can create a lot of trouble. A lot of wealth in a family can sometimes break the family apart. It puts you in a position of danger.

As Ajaan Lee said, the goodness of the world isn’t true, and the truth of the world isn’t good. Whereas when you come to the Dhamma, the goodness is true, the truth is good. You’re doing good things, and good things will result. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll succeed in the world outside, in their terms, or that you can take that success with you.

Think of Ven. Raṭṭhapāla’s teachings to King Koravya. “The world has nothing of its own. One has to pass along leaving everything behind.” If that wealth was ill-gotten, it becomes a punishment. Whereas the wealth you get in the Dhamma is the wealth of conviction, a healthy sense of shame and compunction, virtue, learning, generosity, discernment. This wealth is really yours—and it’s really good. You can do good things with it, and you’re not the only one who benefits.

With the pleasures of the world — gain, status, praise, sensual pleasures — all too often you gain, somebody else loses. This is the kind of happiness or goodness, quote-unquote, that creates divisions in the world. There are the haves and the have-nots. Whereas with the goodness of the Dhamma — the goodness of generosity, virtue, meditation — you benefit, and the people around you benefit as well. No divisions are created. Which is why this is the kind of happiness you can share.

When someone gains status, they can’t dedicate their status to other beings on other levels. You can do good with things like it, but again that becomes part of the world of the Dhamma. In the world outside, people gain status and they can do anything they want with it. If they dedicate it to the Dhamma, that’s something else.

So this is the real world: right here where you’re meditating right now. And the goodness you do right now is really is yours. You can take it with you when you go — or rather, it follows you wherever you go. It doesn’t weight you down and you don’t have to look after it. It’ll look after itself.

As for people who are not doing good, that’s their business.

There’s a story that one of Ajaan Fuang’s students told me. She was part of a group that was going to go with the Ajaan Fuang up to the chedi, the spired monument on the top of the hill. They were planning to meditate, but when they got up there, they found a pile of junk all over the place. So instead of meditating, they were cleaning it up.

This woman complained: “How can anybody leave garbage around a chedi like that?”

But as Ajaan Fuang said, “Don’t complain. They’re giving us the opportunity to do good.”

Of course, what they did wasn’t good at all. And they’re going to suffer as a result. But you take advantage of the opportunity you have to do good. That becomes yours. So there’s no need to resent those who are not doing good along with us.

This is an important attitude you need to participate in this economy of gifts we have here, where the more you give, the more you gain. The less you give, the less you gain. That’s the real world, the world where real happiness can be found. And as I said, that’s the kind of happiness you can dedicate to others. They see that you’re doing good and it lifts the heart.

We’ve had a number of people tell us that just knowing that there’s this monastery here where people are doing good lifts their heart wherever they are, because it shows that the human race still has some good people. There’s still a sense of goodness here in some parts of the world. It makes the world a lot easier to live in.

So the goodness you do is real. And the desire to do a lot is not called greed. It’s called initiative. It’s one of the virtues of finding happiness in this life. And in showing initiative in things like generosity, virtue, and meditation, you guarantee happiness in future lives. That goodness can even take you beyond lives—present, past, and future. That’s when it gets really good.

We had the question today about putting an end to craving, meaning that you have to have dispassion for all things that are fabricated. It sounds dry and dull, but the reason the Buddha has you develop dispassion is because there’s something better when you can let go of your passion for inferior things. It’s like outgrowing a childish game. It’s not that life becomes grey or dull. You’ve got better things to do with your time. That’s the Buddha’s message.

You think generosity is good? Well, virtue is even better. You think virtue is good? Meditating is better. You think getting the mind in concentration is good? Well, the insight that leads to total freedom, that’s even better. The Buddha always has better things to promise, all the way up to total release. That’s the real world. And if we live in that world, we can find real happiness. It’s a happiness that spreads around, which makes it even happier.