No Holes in Your Pocket

When you’ve done good, it’s good to appreciate your own goodness. The Buddha wasn’t the sort of person who said that you should pretend that your goodness is not good or that it’s not yours—that it’s somebody else acting through you. You’re acting on your own volition, and you know the results are going to be good. So rejoice in that.

That’s what gives you energy for your practice. Without that energy, things get dry very fast. But when you appreciate that you’ve been generous, that you’ve observed the precepts, that you’ve been meditating, that’s food for the mind. And that food helps the mind to settle down with a sense of well-being, a sense of peace.

So appreciate that, but then realize you don’t just sit on your laurels. You have to continue doing good. In Ajaan Fuang’s terms, you take the profits of the good you’ve done and you invest them again. You try to raise the level of your mind.

After all, we do goodness for several reasons. One is to dedicate the merit to others. But the main reason is to develop good qualities in our own minds and hearts—qualities like generosity, compassion, goodwill for others. On the basis of that, you can get the mind to settle down.

The merit that comes from the goodness you’ve done needs a place to be kept. You keep it here in your own mind. When the mind is in good shape, it’s got a good center inside, and it’s not leaking out through its eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body, then you can keep the goodness you’ve done: in other words, the sense of well-being, the sense of self-esteem that comes from doing things that are good. It doesn’t go leaking out.

Ajaan Lee’s comparison is that it’s like having money that you put in a pocket. If there’s a hole in the pocket, then the money drops out. What are you going to blame? You’re going to blame the money? Or are you going to blame the hole? Well, it’s the hole. So you have to sew up your pocket. Then whatever money you put in there is going to stay with you.

In the same way, the merit that you’ve done, the goodness you’ve done, if it’s kept in a leaky mind, is going to go leaking out. You’ve done good, but you don’t feel that much nourished by it. But if you can keep it gathered together like this—focused, say, on the breath; focused on Buddho—then it’s with you all the time, that sense of well-being, that sense of self-esteem. As it gets invested, it gets stronger.

This is why we have this habit of meditating a little bit after the donation and the meal to remind yourself that this is where you need to keep your goodness. The goodness is not there in the food. The goodness is here in your mind, so make sure your mind stays in good shape so that things don’t go leaking out. The goodness you’ve done will stick with you for a long time.