Enjoyment Is Dissipating Merit

Buddhist practitioners should frequently introspect on which aspects they are constantly depleting their merit, and after introspecting, they should correct themselves, taking care not to frivolously waste their merit, in order to advance swiftly on the path of practice. In modern society, material life is prosperous—does this indicate that sentient beings of today have great merit, while sentient beings at the time of the Buddha had little merit? Not at all. The measure of merit does not depend on superficial extravagance, but on whether one's energy and merit can be devoted to the path of practice and to wholesome karma, whether one can continuously unlock the treasure trove of wisdom, and whether one can preserve one's merit within the tathāgatagarbha for cultivating the path in future lives, rather than squandering it in vain on worldly dharmas. When people lack merit, they often are born into an age of ostentation and frivolity, easily cashing out their seeds of merit to enjoy worldly pleasures and to display their power and prestige. If Buddhist practitioners fail to awaken and instead follow worldly indulgences, casually depleting their own merit, engaging in unprofitable worldly affairs, and making no plans for the path of practice, that is a manifestation of lacking wisdom and good roots. Those with good roots and wisdom preserve their merit for cultivating the path, and do not cash it out as enjoyment and ostentation in 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 to perish—even if they exist, they are empty. People of the world find it hard to realize emptiness; they only know existence, and hence they harbor the mentality of seizing pleasure in the moment without considering future lives.