Merit

The world is a place where happiness is hard to find. Whichever direction you look, there’s nothing but pain, trouble, and turmoil. If we could escape and go live someplace else, hardly anybody would be left staying here. The world would fall vacant, without anyone living here at all. But because we’re stymied and can’t find a way out, we have to put up with living here in agony and anguish. If it weren’t so beyond our capacity to escape, it’s unlikely that anyone would want to stay.

The Buddha’s purpose in formulating the custom of gathering to meet on Dhamma-listening days was to invite people to train themselves in doing what’s good. Any gathering without a purpose doesn’t give rise to anything. So as we gather together today, we have to be sincere in our intent to search for goodness within ourselves—not that we come to the monastery simply because we see other people come, or we gather together because we see other people gather together. If we come without any purpose in mind like that, no real benefits arise.

We’ve been interested in the affairs of the world ever since we were young, but some of us have become interested in the affairs of the Dhamma only now that we’re old. Some people die before they make it to the monastery even once. You have to see that the time when you have the opportunity to do good has value. So when you listen to this Dhamma talk, don’t just go through the motions of listening without any real purpose. You have to be genuinely intent on listening. Only then will your listening to the Dhamma give results. This is why the Buddha said, “Kālena dhamma-savanaṁ etam-maṅgalam-uttamaṁ: Periodically listening to the Dhamma is the highest blessing.” What this means is that we’ll get something of excellence embedded in our heart.

The word “world” refers to the affairs of material things. The word “Dhamma” refers to the affairs of things that aren’t material. The Dhamma is an affair of the heart and mind. The world is an affair of the body. But the world and the Dhamma have to depend on each other, in the same way that people have to depend on the world in order to live, and the world depends on people to dress it up and make it livable and lovely, arranging homes, buildings, and roads in a way that’s beautiful.

Lots of people are interested in dressing up themselves and their homes to make them beautiful, but there are hardly any people interested in dressing up their minds, because the mind is something you can’t see. But the fact is that the mind is the most important thing for any human being. The body and the mind have to depend on each other if they’re going to grow. Still, they’re two separate things, not one and the same, in the same way that people have to depend on the earth, but the earth isn’t people, and people aren’t the earth.

What does our suffering come from? The Buddha discovered that if things are good, the mind is at ease; if they’re not good, the mind isn’t at ease. Whether the lives of people in the world are to be pleasant or painful depends on these two factors. So the question is, “How can we make ourselves good so that we can be at our ease and not suffer in various ways?”

So what do we want? If you were to ask people this question, they’d be sure to answer, “We want the best things, the cleanest things, and things that satisfy our desires!” When the heart is satisfied, it will be happy and at ease. But happiness is of two sorts. The first sort is like rice that’s cooked. The second sort is like the brightness of stars in the sky. So there’s rice-happy and star-happy. The happiness of the world is rice-happy. The happiness of the Dhamma is star-happy.

The heart is like an innocent child that puts things that aren’t really food into its mouth, and so it suffers. We all want happiness, but we keep putting suffering into ourselves without realizing what we’re doing. That’s because there are those two kinds of happiness. Star-happy is bright and flavorful, with a high level of nourishment that’s cooling to the heart. Rice-happy has flavor for the body, but it doesn’t have any brightness—i.e., no real happiness for the heart.

The happiness of the heart has a flavor that’s cool and soothing because it can depend on the Dhamma to solve its problems and keep it in good repair. If the mind isn’t pervaded by the Dhamma, it has no real happiness. So we have to make the heart gleaming like the stars and bright like the moon. If this is something you want, you should do what you can to really experience it.

This body of ours—composed of various elements gathered together in a single lump: If we don’t know how to separate the elements out to see what’s there, we don’t really know ourselves. It’s as if someone were to hand us a piece of scrap metal. If we don’t take it and separate out the various metals to see what’s mixed in it—tin or copper or whatever—it won’t have any value for us and we’ll have to sell it cheap. We all have good things within ourselves, but if we don’t know how to separate them out, the body will be nothing but a lump. We’ll look after it until it dies in the same way that we’d lie around hugging a piece of metal or a piece of rock without knowing what to do with it. We won’t get any benefit out of it at all.

The Buddha saw that the body and the mind are two separate things of differing value. The body is slow and heavy. The mind is light and very fast. For example, if you think of going to Bangkok, the mind immediately zooms to Bangkok. It could go there who knows how many times in a day. But with the body, if you simply want it to go, it’ll never get there. And it’s even worse when you’re old: Each step can wear you out. So the speed of the body and mind are different in this way. That’s why the Buddha said that the mind is the fastest thing in the world, and it’s the most important thing in the body. We have to study it so that we’re fully acquainted with it. Otherwise, we won’t be able to meet with happiness.

Buddhism isn’t an affair of praying or asking, and it’s not something that we can give to one another. We each have to do the work for ourselves if we want to get results. This is why the Buddha taught us to make merit, for merit is what gives rise to the happiness we aspire to. If you look around you, you’ll see that some people succeed at everything they put their hand to. Other people don’t succeed at anything: They try this and it doesn’t succeed; they try that and it doesn’t succeed. That’s because they don’t have any merit to help them. The Buddha thus praised those who make a lot of merit often, for whatever they think of doing will succeed in line with their aims. Those are the people who are happy.

“So what’s good about merit? The more you make merit, the less wealth you have. What’s so good about it?” If people look at it only on the surface, they’re sure to see things in that way. If you speak only briefly about merit without explaining it, people are sure to misunderstand. This is why the Buddha explained the rewards of the three ways of making merit: generosity, virtue, and meditation.

Generosity is a way of helping other people be happy. When we help one another and give useful things to one another, it has to mean something. So stop and think. All the suffering and turmoil in the world—thievery, arson, and world wars: What do they come from? They come from people not eating their fill. Not eating your fill happens in two ways: (1) not having anything to eat; and (2) having things to eat but you’re not full—i.e., your greed has no sense of enough. These two forms of not eating your fill give birth to world wars. Some people want to be the only ones who are rich. But think about it: If there were only ten really rich people and twenty million people with nothing to eat, the twenty million are sure to gang up on the ten. Once the twenty million gain power, they’re going to force the ten of you to eat nothing but watery rice porridge and to sleep on the ground.

This is why the Buddha taught us to be generous, to share food with one another. Don’t be stingy and selfish. If we were to share things with one another all over the world, there probably wouldn’t be any turmoil. When people have enough to eat, they quiet down. And not just people: The same is true of animals, like dogs. Once they have enough to eat, they lie down still. You can step over their heads and they won’t bite you. And they won’t harass people as well.

It’s the same with people. When they can eat their fill and sleep at night, they smile until their cheeks bulge out. Other people can curse them and they won’t get angry. But if, when they’re hungry, someone says anything even just the least bit displeasing, they can almost rip off that person’s flesh to eat it. This is the way it is with people and animals.

“Not having anything to eat”: What does that come from? It comes from being poor. Poverty can come from lots of things, but by and large it comes from either laziness or stupidity. That’s why many people don’t have anything to eat. They’re too lazy to work, and so they’re poor. When they’re poor they don’t have anything to eat.

“Having things to eat but you’re not full”: This happens when greed and stinginess take over the heart. You have enough but you don’t dare eat it for fear that you’ll run out, or that other people will see you, or that they’ll ask you for some of what you’ve got. If you don’t dare eat because you’re afraid of running out or that other people will steal what you have, you have to eat in secret. When other people who don’t have anything to eat see you, they’ll think, “Why do these people have so much? Why do they eat in secret without sharing?” This gives rise to thievery and robbery. This is the fuse that ignites world wars: We don’t share food with one another. If we were to share with one another, the world would be peaceful and happy. If we don’t share, there will have to be turmoil. When little wars start, they give rise to big wars, which then turn into world wars.

The Buddha foresaw these problems and so he taught, “Dānañca dhamma-cariyā ca etam-maṅgalam-uttamaṁ: Giving and practicing the Dhamma are the highest blessing.”

There are four kinds of giving:

When you do this, it’s a blessing for yourself. You’ve put your wealth in safekeeping in these four banks. When you need that wealth, all you have to do is to remember the good you’ve done, and the mind will be comforted. This type of wealth is noble wealth: It follows you to your dying day, and even when you go to the next world, you’ll have plenty to use without any worry.

For this reason, the Buddha looked after the world to keep it happy and at peace by teaching people to give these four kinds of gifts. And he taught the Dhamma so that we would observe the precepts and practice meditation. He taught us, “Don’t stay stuck in the pleasures of the world—being able to lie down and sleep, and eating your fill—because being full in this way doesn’t stay full for long, and isn’t really full. If you’re full today, you’ll be hungry again tomorrow. If you’re full tomorrow, you’ll be hungry again the next day. You have to suffer in running around always looking for things to eat. As for the pleasure in lying down, there’s nothing reliable about it. Try lying down for three days and see what it’s like. Your back will get so stiff that you won’t be able to get up. You’ll have to find someone to massage you and rub you down with oil. What you thought would be pleasant ends up giving you pain.

That’s why the Buddha taught us not to be infatuated with the pleasure of eating and lying down, and instead to pulverize that pleasure into a fine powder so that it’ll turn into something of value. It’s like a tapioca root that costs 20 cents. If you slice it, dry it in the sun, and then grind it down to a fine flour, then when you take it to sell in the market you’ll find that its price has increased to four or five dollars a kilogram. Or like ordinary rice, which costs a dollar and a half per liter: If you sun it and grind it down into flour for making sweets, you’ll be able to sell it for twice its original price.

In the same way, the Buddha taught us to take our wealth and pulverize it so that it’ll grow in value. In other words, he has us use our discernment to see that wealth is simply common property of the world, and that we can gain value from it by giving material support and offerings to others, so that we’ll then be generous to others. Don’t eat it all yourself. “N’ekāsī labhate sukhaṁ: Those who eat alone can find no happiness.” When you lie down, don’t lie down for long. Sacrifice some of your time in bed by sitting up in meditation, developing thoughts of goodwill as a means of strengthening your heart and mind. In that way you won’t oppress other people, and you won’t oppress yourself.

The Buddha taught that if the mind falls into good thoughts, it’ll find ease and happiness. If it falls into evil thoughts, it’ll find suffering and pain. You can prove this to yourself: When you go back home, trying thinking of something long and difficult, and see how you feel. Your head will immediately start itching and aching. Or else think about someone you really hate—someone who’s been your enemy or has abused and oppressed you in various ways: Your heart won’t feel happy at all. This is thinking about things that aren’t good.

As for things that are good, you can try that as well. For example, think about what would happen if someone told you a number that’ll win the first prize in the lottery for sure, and that you’d be able to make merit in a huge way. If the lottery then comes out with exactly that number, not a single digit off, and you have 500,000 dollars in your hand, what would you want? When you think like this, you could sit there just smiling to yourself. You could close your door and lie there smiling to yourself.

This is why the Buddha taught us to think only of things that are good—like thinking, buddho, buddho. The mind will be at its ease, blooming and bright, without any sorrow.

When the mind thinks about things that are meritorious, it’s like eating food that has flavor and nourishment. If you sit here thinking about all the money you’ve lent to other people, it’s not anything good, because some people, when the time comes, won’t pay their interest. You have to confront them before they’ll be willing to pay. Some people won’t even pay then. They’ll cheat you out of both the interest and the capital. When you think about this, it pains your heart. So think about something better than that. Tell yourself, “I’m going to work solely on the mind. I won’t get involved in affairs of the eyes, ears, etc., at all.” When the mind has nothing disturbing it, it’ll give rise to purity. It’ll brighten up and be star-happy. Don’t let it be rice-porridge happy: i.e., you put it in a plate, leave it there for six hours, and come back to find that it’s spoiled.

No matter how amazing the good things of the world, that goodness doesn’t last. It’ll have to part ways with us. It’s not like happiness in the Dhamma, i.e., when the heart is happy. That kind of happiness stays with us at all times. No matter where we go, it’ll follow us there. For this reason, you should try to bring your mind to right concentration with insight in your heart. You’ll be at your ease. Whether you’re rich or poor, you won’t care. You won’t be interested in the affairs of the world at all.

When you practice the Dhamma, you have to practice in line with the actual Dhamma. It’s the same as when you want to ride on an ox or in a car. Don’t ride the shadow of the ox or the shadow of the car. Only if you ride the actual ox or car will you gain any comfort and actually get to your goal. The externals of merit are like the shadow of the ox or the shadow of the car. If you don’t train your mind, you’ll never get to reach actual merit. You’ll land either on its head or on its tail, and the ox may kick you or stab you with its horns—as happened in a story I’ll tell you.

One day at the beginning of the Rains retreat, a husband and wife decided to give a gift to the Saṅgha for they saw that it would gain them a lot of merit. That night they prepared all the food and other things they would give to the Saṅgha, and both of them felt joyful and happy. The next morning the two monks who were to receive their gift arrived at the house. The husband’s name was Maew, and the wife’s name was Ma. Both of them brought trays of food and placed them in front of the monks.

The monks had ordained when they were old, and neither of them knew how to chant the precepts. So when Maew and Ma asked for the precepts, the elder monk fidgeted around a bit and then gave the fifth precept—against drinking—first. He had heard that drinking was a really big sin, and just as a tree is big at its base, he decided that the big precept should come first. So that’s how he chanted it. When he had finished, the second monk said, “That’s not the right way to give the precepts.” The first one said, “Yes, it is right.” The second one said, “No, it’s wrong.” So they started getting irritated and argued back and forth until the first monk challenged the second monk, “Which part of a boat comes first? Which part of a carrying pole comes first? Which part of a person comes first? Try thinking about it. Any side at all can come first. When a person walks, the toes come first. When he crawls, the thumbs and knees come first. It’s the same with boats and carrying poles: Whichever direction you’re headed, front or back, that’s the part that comes first. So there’s nothing wrong with giving the fifth precept first.”

So they agreed that he was right, even though the whole thing was totally wrong. Usually the precept against killing has to come first every time. It’s just that neither of them had had any training.

Then the elder monk taught Maew the chant for offering the gift to the Saṅgha: “These offerings we give to the Saṅgha,” etc. Maew and Ma chanted “Namo tassa…: Homage to the Blessed One,” three times, and then Maew said to Ma, “Repeat after me.” So he started with the first word in the chant, “Imāni,” [which means, “These,” in Pali, but “This bitch Ma, here,” in Thai]. Ma just sat there in silence and didn’t repeat after him. So Maew started again, “Imāni.” But Ma sat there fuming: “Here we, on a day making merit, and he uses this kind of language with me.” So Maew started again, “Imāni.” Ma couldn’t stand it any longer and so she shot back at her husband, “Ai Maew ni: This bastard Maew here!”

Maew got angry and gave her a nasty look. Finally they started yelling at each other and, taking the serving spoons from the tray, began beating each other over the head. “Where did you study this kind of language?” Ma yelled at her husband. “I’ve never heard you say anything like this before.” Maew said he learned it from the monks. So Ma turned on the elder monk and accused him of turning her husband against her and teaching him foul language. “All these monks know how to do is eat. You can’t even give the precepts right. Well, I’ve had enough. Get out of my house right now!”

The two old monks were in a fix. Whatever they said would make her flare up even more, and they themselves were famished, so they took their bowls and hurried out of the house. When they got back to the temple, they had to boil a pot of rice for their meal.

This is what happens when people try to do good but miss what’s actually good inside, leading to all sorts of trouble.

So when you try to make merit and do what’s skillful, you have to train your heart so that your merit really will lead to happiness. Make your mind clear and clean, in line with the Buddha’s saying, “Kusalassūpasampadā: Be complete in what’s skillful.” That merit will then cleanse your mind, in line with the saying, “Sacitta-pariyodapānaṁ: Cleanse your mind on all sides” so that it’s free of faults. “Etaṁ buddhāna-sāsanaṁ: That way you’re right in line with the teachings of all 108 Buddhas.”