Merit

[Cameron]

I posted this on the HT board(My name over there is Golden Sun). Quite some interesting discussion . Repost here if anyone didn't see it or wants to add something to the discussion.

 

 

Wow, some interesting stuff here over the past month. Good entertainment for me as I recover from knee surgery.

 

Max has brought up the importance of merit many times here and elsewhere. I am guessing it is the work of Bill Bodri that has influenced this view.

 

I was pretty hesitant to go through Bill's work(I purchased most of his e books)since most of it is very long and like someone said he tends to repeat the same points over and over again for hundreds of pages.

 

From my understanding, the merit teachings take into account the Buddhist and Hindu view of 'Indra's Net' that all beings simutaneously interpenetrate and are reflected in eachother and an act of kindness(or hate) towards any part of the net(universe)would have the effect of being reflected back(karma)..or something.

 

What I am not sure I agree with is the point Max seems to place as so important that merit is most important of all. And you better work at creating merit otherwise you have no hope of enlightenment.

 

I don't think it is a bad teaching no doubt Buddhas have always taught Do Good Do not do evil Do Good for others etc. But the teaching to sort of "go out of the way" to " create" merit seems somehow untaoist to me and not what Lao Tzu was talking about.

 

It seems Taoism is about simplicity and returning to natural virtue..te. I don't think going out of your way to do good good deeds for others is necissarily true te .true te, it seems, would flow efforltessly from the heart as ana ct of love of one human being to another(or other life form, animal etc.)

 

So my feeling about this is saying merit is most important is sort of putting the cart before the horse since through meditation(it seems) and study of taoist philosphy and nature in general you develop natural te which is in alignment with Tao.

 

The sun shines it's warmth on all it doesn't think " Oh, what kind of merit will I get from this". So the higher forces of anture are efforlessly giving there love and energy to the rest of the universe without much though of "self".

 

Getting rid of the view of a small independant self seems to be the root of what blocks natural te from being everyday acts of kindness.

 

But am interested in others views on this for clarification. Since Lao Tzu(whether he was a single man or group of people) thought it so important to put it in the title of Tao Te Ching.

 

It seems to be a subtle issue to me.

 

 

Just to be clear. I think charities are awesome and help people when possible but just trying to detuct whether it is really the path to be thinking of helping people in order to create merit or help people because it is good to help people!

 

I guess it is a mute point since it's obviously not a bad thing if you get some spiritual rewards for doing good deeds but mentally isn't it better to help people out of a sense of compassion and love not out of a sense of personal gain?

 

Or is the idea here that many people do not have a sense of service to others, love and compassion so they should just help others on faith that it is the good thing to do until it one day occurs to them they are benifitting from it and they are getting the love, rewards etc back to them and it's all good and you feel warm inside.

 

 

I am sure M Winn has his own views on this which would be interesting to here.

 

 

Just seems to me a true Bodhisattva would want to help others out of wanting to ease others suffering. Not out of some goal to accumulate merit.

 

I was listening to my Thich Nhat Han CD's tonight and really got the impression he is here to help others. He talked about how the Kuan Yin statues in China or pictures with dozens or hundreds of arms expressed how much love Kuan Yin has to ease the suffering of people.

 

I don't imagine a Bodhisattva like Kuan Yin(Avalotishvara) as having so much love for sentient beings and wanting to ease their suffering out of a sense of personal merit accumulation to herself/himself.

 

And I think it is the spiritual experience(realizing oneness with the universe to one degree or another) that is the basis for this type of compassion .Or atleast some kind of feeling of conenction.

 

Though I do like Bodri's point that bug world religions serve the purpouse of teaching people to do good deeds so they can prevent being sent to hell. Obviously it would be ebtter if everyone studied Tao, Zen and the like and leaenred about there true nature directly but most arent up for it or it doesn't seem appealing for one reason or another.

 

Challeninging questions.

[Ian]

I reckon the whole idea of merit is complete nonsense, for several reasons.

 

That doesn't mean that that it isn't nice, or at least fairly harmless, that the things people do for merit get done.

 

But there are a couple of big problems with it.

 

Giving stuff away is a nice practice, which many teachers have encouraged, because it's a good habit-breaker. People are selfish. Having to be generous is an excellent opportunity for agonised self-observation.

 

And it is good not to be mean, because being mean enhances a sense of separation between oneself and the rest of existence. But that's all.

 

But that's all folks. It's been corrupted. There is no scoreboard. There is no admin department. The only way a sense of your supposed merit could be recorded or adjusted is through the level of your own self-knowledge. That's all there is. How far out of little you and into big life you are.

 

So this idea of accumulating merit for one's own future benefit is not merely daft, but actively counter-productive, in that it furthers your idea of a separate self. (And of a coming future.)

 

If we feel good about ourselves, feel that we deserve success in meditation, we're more likely to enjoy it. But that's all. Let's not kid ourselves.

Edited December 5, 2005 by Ian

[freeform]

.

Edited October 23, 2019 by freeform

[hagar]

Ian

 

Couldn't agree more.

 

Karma is a matter of faith. So is "merit".

 

Why not live with the certainty of the obvious:

 

Life is basically good, quite funny, and very long.

 

All this "Life is suffering, life is short, nothing is real, life is predestined to be this and this, etc, etc," is turning into dogma.

 

Why not enjoy life?

 

h

[sean]

I think the "scoring" is in little self's dissolution from it's false misidentification as Self and in that sense I love that Indra's Net metaphor (see Chinese Buddhist causation theories for an excellent read). I think Bodri's (and then by default also Max's) concept of merit as this big patriarchal score-card in the sky is naive but hey, whatever works. I strongly dislike the idea that feeding hungry ghosts in your PJ's before night-night is somehow more enlightened than truly engaged Buddhist activism working hard toward relieving real suffering on this planet. I have a belief though, and it's actually an affirmation I tell myself every morning: In life, it's only what you give that you get to keep. And what you fail to give, you lose forever. Really takes the sting out of imminent death that one.

 

Sean

[Maddie]

Thought I'd dig up this old thread as merit is something I have been thinking about quite a bit lately. Specifically how using a lot of merit can cause one's condition in life to drop down, much like once the devas use up their merit they fall out of heaven.

[ilumairen]

23 minutes ago, dmattwads said:

Thought I'd dig up this old thread as merit is something I have been thinking about quite a bit lately. Specifically how using a lot of merit can cause one's condition in life to drop down, much like once the devas use up their merit they fall out of heaven.

In what way do you mean “using a lot of merit”?
 

I thought the finishing part of practice, the dedication of merit for the benefit of others, “sealed” it, so it wouldn’t/couldn’t be lost.

[Maddie]

2 minutes ago, ilumairen said:

In what way do you mean “using a lot of merit”?
 

I thought the finishing part of practice, the dedication of merit for the benefit of others, “sealed” it, so it wouldn’t/couldn’t be lost.

 

By using merit what I mean is that one can dedicate their own merit for specific purposes these days aka "manifesting". If one manifests too much and exhausts their merit then their life can change and not for the better.

[liminal_luke]

Is Merit really like a thing that can be saved or used up?  To my mind, merit is not a plum...though I was reminded of this poem by William Carlos Williams.

 

This is Just to Say

 

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

 

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

 

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

 

-- William Carlos Williams

 

 

Edited January 19, 2021 by liminal_luke

[Sketch]

I try not to count my own good deeds, to try to just do the right thing because it was the next thing to do. 

You mean I could trade them in for cash and prizes? 

 

What a chump I've been.

[Maddie]

2 minutes ago, Sketch said:

I try not to count my own good deeds, to try to just do the right thing because it was the next thing to do. 

You mean I could trade them in for cash and prizes? 

 

What a chump I've been.

 

You can, but my point is perhaps that's not a good thing to do too often.

[freeform]

Positive karma is said to fruit when one’s mind is experiencing ‘wholesome’ states... negative karma tends to fruit when one is stuck in unwholesome states of mind.

 

But from a cultivator’s perspective - both positive and negative karma weighs you down and keeps you stuck in the cycle of death-rebirth.

[Maddie]

57 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

Is Merit really like a thing that can be saved or used up?  To my mind, merit is not a plum...though I was reminded of this poem by William Carlos Williams.

 

This is Just to Say

 

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

 

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

 

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

 

-- William Carlos Williams

 

 

 

The sutras tells us that once the devas exhaust their merits they fall from heaven. So if merit is not a literal thing, it at least seems to behave like one.

[Maddie]

1 minute ago, freeform said:

Positive karma is said to fruit when one’s mind is experiencing ‘wholesome’ states... negative karma tends to fruit when one is stuck in unwholesome states of mind.

 

But from a cultivator’s perspective - both positive and negative karma weighs you down and keeps you stuck in the cycle of death-rebirth.

 

I'm hesitant to say more than I know, but I think the notion of good and bad karma keeping one stuck is a Hindu notion.

 

From the best of my understanding in Buddhism good karma is what fuels successful cultivation.

[freeform]

4 minutes ago, dmattwads said:

From the best of my understanding in Buddhism good karma is what fuels successful cultivation.

I’m no expert on Buddhism myself (you probably know more) - but this is what my teacher in Myanmar told me. (And they rarely waste words)

 

While good karma can provide an opportunity to cultivate - that doesn’t mean you’re freed from the cycle.

 

it’s the releasing and letting go of all karma (through cultivation) that you can end the cycle...

[Maddie]

3 minutes ago, freeform said:

I’m no expert on Buddhism myself (you probably know more) - but this is what my teacher in Myanmar told me. (And they rarely waste words)

 

While good karma can provide an opportunity to cultivate - that doesn’t mean you’re freed from the cycle.

 

it’s the releasing and letting go of all karma (through cultivation) that you can end the cycle...

 

Yes that is true. Good karma or merit in and of itself will not do the job, but..... it will help you to come across the teachings and have the opportunity to do the things that do, do the job.

 

So yes technically correct, but at the same time merit is very helpful in getting one to the place they need to be to do what they need to do on the other hand.

[freeform]

13 minutes ago, dmattwads said:

So yes technically correct, but at the same time merit is very helpful in getting one to the place they need to be to do what they need to do on the other hand.

Yeah - it might’ve been in reference to the idea that a cultivator needn’t aim to generate merit.

[Maddie]

3 minutes ago, freeform said:

Yeah - it might’ve been in reference to the idea that a cultivator needn’t aim to generate merit.

 

Merit making is largely the main practice of lay people in Theravada countries like Burma and others. In these places it is generally the attitude that enlightenment is almost impossible for anyone other than a monk. That being said it is also generally thought that to have all the pieces fall into place to become a monk one needs a lot of merit. So the lay people focus primarily on earning merit by supporting the monks so that in the future they too can become monks.

 

Another way of putting it is that the merit is not the building, but the scaffolding from which you build the building. 

[Nungali]

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

Is Merit really like a thing that can be saved or used up?  To my mind, merit is not a plum...though I was reminded of this poem by William Carlos Williams.

 

This is Just to Say

 

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

 

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

 

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

 

-- William Carlos Williams

 

 

 

 

Whoever wrote that  'fridge door poem'  could have used a lot less words .

 

 

I regret to inform you

that I am the perpetrator

of the plums missing

from the refrigerator .

 

 

 

[skyblue]

Indra is the lord of sense organs (Indriyas) and his net is the web of sense pleasures which keep a sentient being bound for innumerable lifetimes. In Hinduism, they say merits can give laymen a chance to experience the presence of saints and sages. People who walked the path of self cultivation generally had lots of merits from their past lives.

 

Other than that, the yogis were told to not to bother about merits after they had started the path. They performed yajnas for the betterment of the world without considering the merits because most of them were great devotees of either self established, or real god/goddesses/devas. Thus, they didn't require the wholesome states from merits.

 

I've heard a saying that goes, "Merits are like handcuffs made of gold. They certainly make you feel good but i their essence is no different from the iron handcuffs called sins."

[silent thunder]

Chains of iron, or chains of gold... they both bind.

[dwai]

Merits are preferable than demerits. Better to be free of both, imho  

[C T]

To be free requires work. 

 

To do the work requires effort. 

 

The acquisition of Prerequisites to the exertion of the right kind of effort is not bestowed miraculously. 

 

The practitioner learns to assemble the right tools. 

 

The process of assembling these tools is, in Buddhist terms, the accumulation of merit. 

 

Merit is not brownie points. It is whats inherent in the progression of spiritual evolution. 

[manitou]

On 12/5/2005 at 1:15 AM, Cameron said:

What I am not sure I agree with is the point Max seems to place as so important that merit is most important of all. And you better work at creating merit otherwise you have no hope of enlightenment.

 

 

 

What he is calling merit, Castaneda would have called impeccability.  It's impeccability of spirit, impeccability of our actions and thoughts.  When you find yourself getting into an argument, for example, the 'impeccable' thing to do would be to look at your own part in the argument, look at your own attitudes, and if necessary, make an apology for anything hurtful you may have said.  Impeccability might be bending over to pick up a piece of trash on a public street rather than bypassing it.  Impeccability is also when you realize that your own thoughts, at any given moment, may be less than enlightened.

 

It's what CT said:

 

On 1/19/2021 at 10:29 PM, C T said:

Merit is not brownie points. It is whats inherent in the progression of spiritual evolution. 

 

Once the conditioning has left us (this takes quite a while), then the field is set for clarity.  It's all about removing your prior conditioning and attitudes, beliefs.  It is then that clarity is achieved.