Does cultivating merit count as spiritual practice?

The aim of cultivation is to increase precepts, meditation, and wisdom, to subdue afflictions, and to extinguish greed, hatred, and delusion. If it is not like this, it does not count as cultivation. The same applies to generosity and the cultivation of merit: it depends on what kind of mind one cultivates merit with. If one does not cultivate merit for one's own greed and other desires, nor with an expectation of repayment for favors, but purely for the benefit of sentient beings, cultivating merit with a bodhicitta mind, then it can aid one's practice of the Path and give rise to precepts, meditation, and wisdom—only such cultivation of merit counts as cultivation. Whereas cultivating merit without bodhicitta can in the end only increase greed, hatred, and delusion and strengthen ignorance; that does not count as cultivation.

An obvious example is Māra Pāpīyas. In a past life, Pāpīyas built monasteries and made offerings to pratyekabuddhas, obtaining great karmic rewards, which made him the lord of the Parinirmitavaśavartin Heaven. Because in his past life he did not generate bodhicitta, and cultivated merit not for the sake of the Path but to satisfy his greed and desires, he used this great karmic reward to control sentient beings in the six realms in order to satisfy his craving for followers. So that sentient beings could not escape his control, he constantly sabotaged the Buddha's Dharma, depriving beings of the opportunity to leave the desire realm, let alone transcend the six realms, so that life after life they remain his demon retinue, indulging in greed and desires alongside him, transmigrating through birth and death. Therefore, if one cultivates merit without bodhicitta, after obtaining the karmic rewards one may commit great evil karma—it would be better not to have cultivated merit at all. Another example is Hitler. Hitler's karmic rewards were also extremely great, and because of these great rewards, there was nothing to obstruct him from committing great evil karma. The number of people he killed was the greatest in the Saha world, and having fallen into hell, he will truly hardly have any chance of emerging. If he had not cultivated merit, the world would have been at peace, and sentient beings would not have had to suffer the pain of birth and death.

Cultivating various wholesome dharmas without bodhicitta is Māra's work. Regarding this principle, some people remain unconvinced in all sorts of ways, but the facts are right there—what is there left to be unconvinced about? Could a person without merit have the capability to commit many of these great evil deeds? When merit is great, power and influence are great, and when committing evil karma no one can stop it and no one can match it—such merit is precisely sentient beings' misfortune.