Where You Make Merit

Close your eyes and be sensitive to your breath. Know when it’s coming in; know when it’s going out. And stick with it all the way in, all the way out. You’re trying to develop good qualities here, and consistency is one of them.

If you watch one or two breaths and then wander off, and then come back for two or three breaths and wander off again, nothing much happens. It’s the consistency—which requires alertness, mindfulness, and ardency—that allows you to stay here. When you stay here consistently, you begin to see things in the mind you never saw before, and you develop qualities in the mind you never had before.

This is what everything comes down to—the qualities we develop in the mind. We suffer because of a lack of good qualities, but we can learn how not to suffer by developing the good qualities within us.

One of Ajaan Fuang’s students told me that the first time she went to see Ajaan Fuang he asked her, “Where have you made merit?” She started listing all the different monasteries and temples in the area where she’d made merit. He said, “Why haven’t you made merit in your heart?” That struck her as something that had never occurred to her before. But he went on to say that true merit is a quality of the heart and the mind. When we do the external acts of merit, like giving gifts, observing the precepts, sitting and meditating, it’s for the sake of developing those good qualities inside.

When you give a gift, the important thing is the attitude with which you give the gift. As you think about what would be a good gift to give, you’re happy to think about the merit that you’re actually creating, the goodness you’re doing in the world by giving the gift. You’re happy while you’re doing it, and then when you reflect back on it, you’re happy as well. At the same time, it develops qualities of compassion for others. You see other people are lacking, you have something they don’t have, and then you’re willing to give it to them. So you’re working on the qualities of the mind. The qualities of the mind are much more important than the actual gift.

The same with the precepts: You can take the precepts as part of the ceremony. But then the quality of the mind is, one, the intention not to harm, and then, two, you’re developing good qualities of the mind as you maintain the precepts—again, more mindfulness, more alertness, more ardency. Those are the important things.

As Ajaan Lee used to say, it’s like squeezing the juice out of a fruit. You have the pulp left; you give the pulp away. The juice, the really nutritious part of it, is what you keep for yourself.

And again, of course, with meditation, you’re working directly on the mind itself as you develop these qualities of alertness, mindfulness, and ardency even more diligently, even more directly.

You start with meditating on thoughts of goodwill: wishing for your own true happiness, wishing for the true happiness of others. You realize that your true happiness doesn’t have to conflict with theirs. And the more true happiness that people find within themselves in this world, the much better place it would be. You can imagine what the news would be like if everybody had access to true happiness within themselves. It would be a very different world. The news would be very different.

We can’t wait for other people, though, to do that. We have to work within ourselves. So focus on the qualities of the mind you’re developing wherever you go—as you’re being generous, as you’re being virtuous, as you’re developing thoughts of goodwill and your powers of mindfulness and concentration. It’s those qualities in the mind that are the important thing. That’s the essence of what we’re here for. That’s where the genuine goodness is found.

Of course, once you develop goodness within you, it’s not going to stay just within you. It spreads around some more. So it’s good for the whole world that we’re being generous, that we’re being virtuous, and we’re meditating.

So. Keep at it. As the Buddha said, rejoice in the merit that you’ve made and at the same time, be happy that you have the opportunity to keep on making merit. His own example was, as he said, that he never rested content with skillful qualities. In other words, if there was still any slightest bit of suffering in his mind, any slightest bit of disturbance, he would work to get rid of it. Even as he appreciated all the goodness he had done, he realized there was always more to be done.

That’s the attitude we should all have. We’ve done good in the past. That goodness is not going to go away. But each time we breathe in, breathe out, we have more opportunity to do good. So make the most of it while you have the chance.