The Importance of Merit

Without merit (puṇya), it is very difficult to cultivate meditative concentration (samādhi) and advance. As soon as one sits down to meditate, some worldly affair arises to disturb one, and one has no choice but to deal with it; just as one is about to enter concentration, an interruption appears on the other side, and again one has no choice but to discern and handle it. Reflect back on this: in what areas is each of us constantly depleting our merit? Once you can discern this through introspection, you should take care not to lightly squander your own merit, so that your progress on the Path may advance swiftly. In modern society, material life is so highly developed—does this indicate that sentient beings today have great merit, while sentient beings at the time of the Buddha had little merit? Worldly people so easily cash in the seeds of their merit and use them for enjoyment—how utterly unwise, how utterly lacking in wholesome roots! Those who have wholesome roots and wisdom keep their merit in reserve for cultivating the Path, rather than cashing it in as worldly phenomena for enjoyment and showing off.

Many people like to take pride in the impermanent things of worldly dharmas, using them as capital for boasting—such as "I am such-and-such a high official," "I have such-and-such status and authority," or "I am so-and-so, immensely wealthy beyond compare," "I have such-and-such talent," "I have such-and-such exceptional qualities," and so on. All of these are illusory worldly dharmas—unreliable, soon perishing; even if they exist, they are empty. Worldly people find it hard to realize emptiness; they only know existence.

In the past, Chan patriarchs, wishing to find a disciple to carry on their lineage, would interrogate the disciple's views to observe whether they had attained enlightenment and whether they had wisdom. As soon as the disciple opened their mouth to speak, the master would know they had not awakened, and would say: "Your merit is meager; you cannot sustain my lineage." The patriarch's meaning was that an important reason for insufficient wisdom is insufficient merit. When our thinking is disordered and unclear, we should also frequently look for the causes within ourselves.