Lecture Notes on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (227)

Merit is also the result of common karma

This time, the wheel-turning king wanted to make golden rain fall, and his greed grew greater and greater—no longer coveting small things. If that greedy thought of his could become reality, what does it show? It shows that his merit was complete and sufficient, which is why these greedy wishes could be realized. If there were a person who formed a single thought to make gold fall from the sky, and gold actually fell, under what circumstances would that happen? It would only happen when all the people in the world possessed such great merit; not only must the person who forms the thought have merit, but the other people involved must also have merit to receive and enjoy it. If those who would share in the enjoyment lack the merit to enjoy it, that golden rain cannot fall; even if it could fall, those without merit could not obtain it. Without the karmic seeds of merit, the flowers and fruits of merit cannot appear. The completeness of sentient beings' merit is a prerequisite. In the era when the wheel-turning sage king lived, his subjects were all very blessed; only because they had that blessing in their destiny could they bring about golden rain falling across the world.

This was brought about by the common karma of the wheel-turning sage king and the people of the four continents. Common karma means having jointly accumulated the same kind of merit, so that one can jointly enjoy the common retribution. For example, husband and wife have common karma; without common karma they could not come together. Husband and wife have the same wholesome karma or unwholesome karma, and can jointly bring about wealth and honor or poverty. It is impossible for one to be wealthy and the other poor—they could not come together that way. If the common karma of the husband and wife no longer exists, with one due to receive the retribution of wealth and honor and the other due to receive the retribution of poverty, the two can no longer live together.

Parents and children also have common karma. If parents and children have no common karma—for example, if the parents are due to receive the retribution of poverty while the children are due to enjoy wealth and honor—then after the children grow up and leave home, they will prosper and become wealthy elsewhere, and the parents will not get to enjoy it, showing that they had no common karma. Sentient beings live together on Earth, so all humans on Earth have common karma; or if they live in a small city, the people of that small city also have common karma. Therefore, if we wish to obtain the retribution of wealth and honor, there is no need to pray for it; we only need to genuinely practice generosity (dāna) and cultivate merit. Whoever cultivates it obtains it; whoever does not cultivate it does not obtain it. Wholesome karma has no boundaries and no limits. It is not the case that if you cultivate this karma of wealth and honor, then I will have none of it—whoever cultivates it obtains it; if everyone cultivates it, everyone obtains it.

Therefore, common karma can bring sentient beings together in one place, while non-shared karma separates them. For sentient beings in the land of bliss (sukhāvatī), their common karma brings about heavenly garments and heavenly food that exist naturally, with the seven treasures everywhere and gold paving the ground—that is the common karma of the sentient beings of the land of bliss, whereas people on Earth treat gold as a treasure and wear it on their bodies. When the blessings of people on Earth have been enjoyed until little remains, the best thing on Earth will be iron; at that time, humans who obtain a piece of scrap iron will treat it as a treasure and wear it on their bodies, because sentient beings will have no blessings. The common karma of being without blessings brings about vile things, with no treasures at all.