How to
get
the most results from merit
The authors and editors of this script are
John D. Hughes, Pennie White, Isabella Hobbs, Evelin Halls and Leanne Eames.
The Johnsonian message that conclusions
are at best misleading in a field already rife with premature absolutes and warring
methodologies applies well to merit.
One form of merit appears as money. Good
results from money are dependent on application in the right place at the right time and
the right audience. Even if all these factors are considered and practiced, there is no
guarantee that the causes for good results from money have been made, because other
factors influence outcome.
Merits, like money, may be dedicated
towards good results or bad results.
Before dedicating money towards good
results we must first consider what we mean by ‘good results’.
In the Mangala Sutta, the Buddha taught a
deva about what the 37 highest blessings were. The Buddha said some of the highest
blessings are not to associate with fools but to associate with the wise, and to respect
those who are worthy of respect (such as parents, elders and teachers).
How could our money be geared using this
Mangala knowledge?
How could our pleasant speech be geared
using this Mangala knowledge?
How could our loving kindness be geared
using this Mangala knowledge?
Parents should be regarded as the first
teachers who are worthy of offerings. Good results may come from the merit of changing
money into by appropriate offerings for parents such as food, non-alcoholic drinks,
suitable clothing and affordable housing. Parents are one example of the right audience.
Some error may occur when considering what
constitutes a good action towards a parent. If our parent is overweight, for example, and
running a high risk of heart disease, then more food is not always better. (Offering
sweets to our diabetic parent will not bring a good result.) So there is the error in
offering too much of food to an audience.
If we dedicate only our wholesome merit
towards an action and we only ‘think’ it will give a good result and it turns
out that the actions cause unwholesome kamma to the donor, then we have performed
de-meritous action because we do not have clear vision of the outcome field.
Offering money to some persons may be a
very demeritous action for you if the person were to spend the money supporting his or her
drug addiction. When a person who thought they were kind, in fact, contributed negative
causes toward another person, in this scenario, the person who thought the action was kind
was giving to the wrong audience. Their money would be better spent on a right person such
as the person who manages an orphanage.
We fund overseas orphanages.
***
Opportunities for making merit (kusala
kamma) are rare at times because they depend on conditions that are difficult to
‘assemble’. For example, to offer food to a Bhikkhu or a Nun requires at least
ten contemporaneous conditions to arise.
1 The co-existent human birth of both the
Bhikkhu and oneself.
2 A living Bhikkhu or Nun who is near at
hand.
3 Sufficient vision to see.
4 The knowledge that such an act is
meritorious.
5 Food available.
6 The volition to want to offer food to
another person.
7 The correct time and proper place within
the Vinaya Rules.
8 The time and means to prepare the food.
9 Sufficient physical strength to prepare
and offer the food.
10 The actual acceptance of the food by
the Bhikkhu.
For some persons, the
‘assembling’ of such conditions may take as long as one million lifetimes or
more. Why? Because we may be born as animals and cannot offer in that state.
It is the volition that creates causes. We
must be aware of our volition (intentions) and be conscious of such actions if we want to
make meritorious action. So what is meant by ‘volition’ (Pali: cetana)? The
meaning for ‘volition’ as defined by the Oxford Dictionary is: "1. An act
of willing or resolving something; a decision or choice made after due consideration or
deliberation. 2. The action of consciously willing or resolving something; the making of a
definite choice or decision regarding a course of action; exercise of the will. 3. The
power or faculty of willing; will-power."
By using basic inferential logic you will
agree with us that good motivations, as long as they are helpful, lead to good results. As
long as they are truly helpful, the action cannot come to bad results.
If we asked the great scientist and
thinker Albert Einstein in 1952 how to get the most results he would have replied:
"It is not enough to teach man
specialty. Through it he may become a kind of useful machine but not a harmoniously
developed personality. It is essential that the student acquire an understanding of and a
lively feeling for values. He must acquire a vivid sense of the beautiful and of the
morally good. Otherwise he - with his specialized knowledge - more closely resembles a
well-trained dog than a harmoniously developed person. He must learn to understand the
motives of human beings, their illusions, and their sufferings, in order to acquire a
proper relationship to individual fellow-men and to the community."
***
The Buddha identified ten ways of making
merit in ascending order of power.
These are given in Pali with English
equivalents.
1 DANA - Charity, Generosity.
2 SILA - Observing Precepts, Morality.
3 BHAVANA - Meditation.
4 APACAYANA - Respect for Dhamma Teachers.
5 VEYYAVACCA - Giving a helping hand for
others to perform virtuous deeds .
6 PATTIDANA - Sharing Merits.
7 PATTANUMODANA - Joyful acknowledgments
in the sharing of Merits.
8 DHAMMASSAVANA - Listening to Dhamma.
9 DHAIKADESANA -Teaching Dhamma.
10 DHITTHUJUKAMMA - Righting one’s
own wrong views.
Without Mindfulness and Wisdom we would
not know to use these methods.
Buddha Dhamma Teachers constantly point to
merit making opportunities and direct their Students into merit making activities.
In many countries around the world,
education is highly valued. Therefore, when teachers are highly respected it is probable
that much diligence is applied to learning by the students. To study the Buddha Dhamma a
student must request to be taught in order to create the right form of mind to learn.
There are many stories in Japanese history
where the student who comes to the temple to see the Master to learn the Dhamma, only to
find himself refused every time he attempts to enter. On some occasions the student would
be admitted after waiting many days and nights at the gate. The length of time is
irrelevant, what is relevant is the readiness of the mind of the Student.
This practice originated at Nalanda
Monastery in India. Four gatekeepers would stand guard, only admitting those deemed ready
to be taught. Those about whom there were doubt would be referred to the Master. Aspiring
Students included princes and people of great wealth, but what mattered was not the social
status or wealth of the person who wanted to enter, again all that mattered was the
readiness of the mind of the Student to be taught.
The Law of Cause and Effect (kamma and
vipaka) determines that to attain learning and benefit in respect of anything, it is
necessary to produce an accumulation of available wholesome action (Pali: kusala kamma).
This merit is the ‘energy’ of
all realizations and the cause of continued wholesome conditions of practice. A corollary
of this means, without sufficient available energy, will not lead to the Student's
meditation producing realizations, and further, the Student will find it difficult to find
conditions that will support his or her Dhamma Practice. Some basic conditions have to
arise in order for beings to be able to practice the Buddha Dhamma. These are:
1 You have to be born into a
Buddha-Sasana.
2 You have to be born into a suitable body
or form.
3 You have to be born healthy in order to
live beyond a few years:
4 You have to have sufficient food, water,
warmth and conditions to sustain this present life.
5 You have to meet the Buddha's Teaching
of the Middle Way in a language that can be understood.
6 You have to be Teachable as regards the
Middle Way.
7 You have to desire to Learn the Middle
Way.
8 You have no major obstructions to being
trained in the Middle Way
9 Over an extended period of time, you
have to desire to practice and realise the Teachings of the Middle Way.
10 You have to have sufficient leisure
time to be taught and to practice the Middle Way.
In Australia, the maintenance and
development of old and new Dhamma Centres is one type of activity that for many
practitioners could act as the base of new wholesome kamma on which they continue to
practice and realize the Middle Way. A Practitioner's home altar should reflect his or her
Centre's altar for maximum benefit. If the Temple attended is Mahayana, the home altar
should reflect this style of practice. Cleaning altars is an offering in itself. It is no
different to the cleaning of floors in a Monastery as Monks and Nuns do as part of their
usual practice.
As the hard shell of a tortoise protects
the soft body within, the soft Dhamma too, has to be protected by the hard structure of
Centres: their upkeep, administration, financing and development, at the same time, the
shell or structure is not an end itself, but exists for the benefit of Dhamma
Practitioners through supporting the preservation and proliferation of The Noble Eightfold
Path as taught by the Buddha. A Centre with a sound structure will not become a dead
Institutions, and will not become an empty shell devoid of the Body of Living Dhamma.
Temples are for practicing.
By understanding these processes, your
merit making opportunities can increase both in quality and quantity. When properly
cultivated, your surroundings become a vehicle to move you along the Middle Path. The
merit you accumulate can be directed towards successfully achieving the following stages
of practice:
1 Desire to Practice.
2 Resolve to Practice.
3 Remembrance of Practice.
4 Concentration of Practice.
5 Wisdom arising during Practice.
Undirected merit, when vast, may produce
anything worldly such as for example successive births of great wealth, power, comfort and
pleasure but, in the end, nothing has been achieved because these states are impermanent
and subject to decay when the merit that produced them is exhausted.
***
Recently there was a story in the
newspaper about a man who was bitten by a crocodile. It happened while the man was out
fishing, and when he caught a fish, the crocodile leapt out of the water and tried to eat
the fish, but got its teeth into the man’s shoulder instead. The man made a noise
when he was bitten by the crocodile, but his wife thought her husband had just caught a
fish.
Why did the wife think that her husband
had caught a fish? Because the man had made the same sound when bitten by a crocodile as
he used to make when having caught a fish! Why did the man make the same noise in the two
entirely different situations? Because catching a fish is dukkha (suffering), and being
bitten by a crocodile is also dukkha.
The man made that specific sound every
time he caught a fish, because he had had a win.
When you win a game, do you laugh?
If you laugh when you win, you lose the
merit of the win, directly into the jaws of Mara. That is the reason why it is one of the
Vinaya rules for Monks not to laugh. This rule also applies to lay Buddhist practitioners.
It is not wise to laugh in a temple; it is not wise to laugh at any place upon having won,
for you will certainly not get the results from the merit made.
However, this does not mean that persons
cannot laugh at all. There also exist good ways of laughing, and giggling, that actually
help persons. That kind of laugh, for example, can loosen up persons and cause happiness.
Laughter, or humour, can be an extremely powerful tool in cutting through negative minds
when used with skill.
If we pay attention we can distinguish
between the bad, ugly laugh and the wholesome laugh. Then we can cut out unwholesome
laughs that result in the loss of merit.
It is important to practice friendliness
or amity (adosa); it makes persons happy and does not cause merit to be wasted. With
practice we can achieve equanimity (tatramajjhattata), which is, like amity, one of the
nineteen Wholesome Cetasikas (sobhanasadharana). By practicing amity and equanimity one
accumulates kusala kamma; these are wholesome (kusala) moments of consciousness. Also,
practicing equanimity will make you less susceptible to the effects of dukkha.
To gain human life is rare. What is
certain is that all actions, both positive (kusala kamma) and negative (negative kamma)
will have consequences.
Verse 71 of the Dhammapada says:
A bad action that is done,
does not curdle at once, just like milk;
burning it follows the fool
like fire covered by ashes.
The verse clarifies one aspect of the
kamma doctrine--every action has consequences for its performer, either in this life or
later. The effects either good or bad, may lie hidden, like fire under ashes or like newly
drawn milk that does not curdle at once, but they are inescapable.
Verse 80 of the Dhammapada tells us that:
Engineers lead water,
fletchers make arrows,
carpenters form the wood,
wise men master themselves.
MAY ALL BEINGS BE WELL AND HAPPY
The authors and editors of this
script are John D. Hughes, Pennie White, Isabella Hobbs, Evelin Halls and Leanne Eames.
====
References
Brown, Lesley (ed.), The New Shorter
Oxford English Dictionary, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1993.
Dhammavuddha, Thero (2000) Only We Can
Help Ourselves, Penang, Malaysia: Inward Path, p 5.
Einstein, Albert (1962) Ideas and
Opinions, New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., p 66.
Johansson, Rune E., Pali Buddhist
Texts--Explained to the Beginner, Curzon Press, London, 1981, pp 62-3.
Norris, C. (1980) On after the new
criticism by Frank Lentricchia, cited in, Wall and Ricks (Eds.) (1982) Essays in
Criticism, Vol. XXXII, No. 1, p 93.
The Venerable K. Gunaratuna Thera (1998)
The Dhamma, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, p 13.
Readability Statistics
Flesch Grade Level: 8.9
Coleman-Liau Grade Level: 12.2
Bormuth Grade Level: 10.6
Flesch Reading Ease Score: 61.3
Flesch-Kincaid score: 8.4
For more information, contact the Centre
or better still, come and visit us.
===
Source: Buddhist Discussion Centrer
Update: 01-04-2001