How to Cultivate Merit So That One's Progress on the Path Advances Rapidly?

Buddhist practitioners should frequently reflect on which aspects they are constantly depleting their merit, and once identified, they should correct themselves, being careful not to frivolously waste their merit, so as to swiftly advance in their cultivation of the Path. In modern society, material life is prosperous—does this indicate that sentient beings today have great merit while sentient beings at the time of the Buddha had little? Not at all. The measure of merit does not depend on superficial luxury; rather, it lies in whether one can devote one's energy and merit to the enterprise of the Path, to wholesome karma, whether one can continuously unlock the treasure trove of wisdom, and whether one can retain one's merit within the tathāgatagarbha for use in cultivating the Path in future lives, rather than squandering it in vain on worldly dharmas.

When worldly people lack merit, they often are born into an age of ostentation and extravagance, easily cashing out their seeds of merit to indulge in worldly pleasures and to display their power and prestige. If Buddhist practitioners fail to awaken and instead follow worldly enjoyments, casually depleting their merit and engaging in unprofitable worldly affairs without any plan for advancing on the Path, that is a manifestation of lacking wisdom and lacking wholesome roots. Those with wholesome roots and wisdom retain their merit for cultivating the Path, and do not cash it out as enjoyment and ostentation within worldly dharmas. Many people always take pride in possessing worldly fame, profit, power, and prestige, endlessly haggling over illusory conditioned phenomena that arise and cease, not knowing that wealth, honor, glory, and splendor are like flowers in the sky—soon perishing; even if they exist, they are empty. Worldly people find it hard to realize emptiness; they only know existence. Hence they harbor the mentality of seizing pleasure while one can, giving no thought to future lives.