“Making Merit”

One of the themes in Buddhist practice that I get questioned on by Westerners is that of ‘making merit.’

What they see is people coming to the monastery with bags of food and other requisites, making a formal offering (sometimes with Pali chanting) to the Sangha who then responds with some chanting in Pali. Some of these people will ask that the merit (puñña) of their act of generosity (dāna) be shared with their departed relatives; some say it’s for their birthday or just for no special reason.

For people who understand Buddha-Dhamma to be mostly about sitting still and quietly in meditation, this merit-making is a mysterious and even superstitious practice. Merit-makers, although generally happy and friendly, aren’t necessarily that quiet or introspective. So what is this about?

Well, in brief, kamma is what it’s about. The experience of good kamma is that when you act on an ethically wholesome intention it makes you feel bright. And the opposite is also true. Furthermore, if you consistently act on a good intention, you establish a pattern in terms of mental behaviour; you set your moral compass. That guides your values and actions, and the consequences of that are you tend to associate with people of good intent, people you can rely upon and who can help you when you’re down.

It’s a simple logic: as we’re bound to create kamma for good or bad that will shape our lives, better do the good and arrive at a better state. In this case, the good can be defined by a series of questions that the Buddha-to-be asked himself as he was practising for liberation: ‘Is this action, or mind-state for my welfare, the welfare of others, and does it lead to Nibbāna?’[M19] (That is towards the elimination of greed, hatred and delusion.) If the answer is ‘Yes’ for all these, then this has to be the good. Acting in these terms is the path of merit.

Merit begins (and sometimes ends) with generosity – but there are further developments. The good feeling of substituting self-interest in terms of possessions for self-interest in terms of bright mind-states is the learning curve; it progresses from generosity on to ethical and compassionate intentions – so people often use a visit to a monastery as an occasion to take moral precepts.

From there the development goes on to renunciation (people will on occasion enter monastic life for a period to make merit); and finally on to the insightful examination of the four noble truths. ‘Does this mind-state support craving, regret and suffering, or lessen it?’

To know that is the highest kind of merit, that of stream-entry (which is the initial realization of Nibbāna).

This reflection by Ajahn Sucitto is from the Blog Reflections “Fields of Merit,” March 27, 2011.