The 3rd. accumulation of merits
The third method is called the accumulation of merits. How does the accumulation of merits help us? During cultivation, only when our power of concentration enters the state of “forgetting self” can our energy be transformed into light and can we attain Samadhi. Thus, we can cross these three areas. There are twenty-four hours in a day, we may have only two to three hours to meditate. It’s already hard to reach a temporary state of “forgetting self” in our meditation, since we are often influenced and lured by our chaotic thoughts, illusional states and physical feelings and perceptions. In our daily life, we have much more time, so we should intentionally practice this quality of “no self”. The quality of “no self” can help us enter the state of “forgetting self” on the meditation cushion.
How can we train the quality of “no self”? The best method is “Benefiting others”. When you benefit others, you naturally don’t think about yourself, because you won’t look from your own perspective. This is called “raising Bodhi Heart” in Buddhism. One of Bodhisattva’s qualities is to have every thought benefit others.
In our daily life, we often believe benefiting others is only to help others. This is only the viewpoint of humans. People often do charities or help weaker people. Based on Buddhism, these only accumulate merits in this world. It can’t become the merits that will help us be liberated from reincarnation. According to Buddhist history, when the first patriarch of Zen, Master Bodhidharma, just came to China, Emperor Liang Wu Di of the Southern Liang Dynasty interviewed him. Emperor Liang Wu Di is a very famous emperor in Chinese Buddhist history. He built many monasteries, and did many things for the development of Buddhism in China. However, when he asked Master Bodhidharma, “do I get any real merits from all of this”? Bodhidharma looked at him and clearly saw his arrogance and pride, and his inflated desires and karmic habits. He answered mildly, “There are no merits.” This was a huge blow for Emperor Liang Wu Di, who sincerely believed in Buddhism. After this, I believe that he must have developed a deeper and more knowledgeable understanding of Buddhism.
For a Buddhist practitioner, benefiting others means that when helping others, you must at the same time cultivate and correct your own desires and karmic habits. For example, if we met a beggar on the street, we will offer a little bit of money without any thought. This offering without cultivation only satisfies our empathy, pity and so on. Because we feel that he is pitiful, we feel because we have love, so we have pity on him. So, let us offer a little bit of money to him. This kind of offering only satisfies our belief that we have love. This is not Buddhist offering. In this case, real Buddhist offering requires practitioners to get rid of their greediness and attachment to money. Of course, there is also love toward the offered person. Whenever we do a good deed, we should be more aware of whether our intention and moving thoughts are selfless or not. This is necessary for practitioners to have complete merits. So only good deeds that can change one’s desires and karmic habits can accumulate as assistant connections for cultivation.
However, Buddhism has a higher demand on practitioners when doing good deeds. For instance, the offering to a beggar we just talked about, Buddhist cultivation requires the offering of “Threefold Wheel of Essential Emptiness”. Only people who truly understand the insight of Buddhism can actually realize this. This means: the donor is empty, the money is empty and the recipient is empty. Basically, it means that when offering, the practitioner attains the state of “no self”. Because there is “no self”, so there is “no him” – all exterior forms exist according to the existence of “self”. Some practitioners believe that since everything is empty, then I don’t need to do anything. But if you are still attached to and attracted by the area of matter, then, all forms and rituals are important to you. Turn your good will into good actions. Only if you turn your good will into good action can it benefit others.
Of course, if we think that the intention of other people’s help toward us is only to accumulate merits, and because of this, we don’t appreciate it, then this is a huge mistake. Even animals know to offer back to people who saved them, how can us humans not know this? The heart of appreciation is a fundamental quality of being human.
Sometimes, whether we raise up the heart of appreciation to the state of cultivation or not, simply practicing doing many good deeds will touch our inner world, and make us more and more selfless. Maybe sometimes we didn’t raise good deeds up to the level of cultivation, but we are still accumulating some merits. When we enter the state of selflessness, we are accumulating good merits. Because selflessness is the quality of Bodhisattvas. A selfless person won’t care about his own loss or gain. He will not carefully calculate every benefit and make sure that he gets equal value in return. He won’t need an excuse to perform good deeds.
In Buddhism, there is the six perfections and all wholesome deeds method to cultivate Bodhisattva’s Great Vehicle. Practicing the six perfections is the best method to accumulate merits. Buddha specifically built this method to completely break and go beyond our attachments. The six perfections are: “offering, discipline bearing and tolerating, diligence, Zen Samadhi, and Prajna wisdom”. The six perfections are six methods to be liberated from reincarnation. This requires practitioners watching over their heart and mind when performing the six perfections. Like this, it can be called a method of liberation. Thus, we must look at every one of our cultivation behaviors from the angle of the area of true vacuum space. When we stand in the area of true vacuum space, experiencing “moment reality, moment emptiness”, if we can treat all our good deeds as “moment real, moment empty”, we can return to the area of true vacuum space much sooner. If you can watch over every thought and intention based on the perspective of the area of true vacuum space, then you can return to that area very quickly.
Offering includes that all you have, you will give it to people in need. Such as money, labor, knowledge, smile and so on. Offer without demanding anything in return. After offering, you let it go right away. There is a saying in Buddhism, offering with the heart of “Threefold Wheel of Essential Emptiness”. This means the donor is empty – you are empty. All of your offerings are empty – all your donated objects are empty. And the recipient is empty – the person you offered to is also empty. The real offering must be based on the “Threefold Wheel of Essential Emptiness”. This is the perfection of offering. This is true cultivation and realization, through which we can enter the door of liberation. Otherwise, you are only performing good deeds to accumulate human and heavenly merits.
Secondly, is the perfection of discipline. The method of perfection of discipline enters the liberation door through discipline. There are many precepts in the Great and Small Vehicles. For lay practitioners of the Great Vehicle, you should follow the verses, “don’t do any unwholesome deeds, do all wholesome deeds”. This is the discipline that correlates to human customs, laws and ethics. What benefits beings are good deeds, the opposite are unwholesome deeds. When you attain the area of true vacuum space, everything is “moment real and moment empty”. There is no judgment. Good and bad are merely a concept of this area of matter. In the area of matter, the human world has its moral standards, so we follow the good and bad according to the human world.
The central focus of the perfection of discipline is to control the indulgence of our heart and mind through the discipline of our behaviors, and gradually cleanse the three poisons: greediness, anger and hate, and ignorance. If we only care about the outside forms, but don’t change anything in our heart and mind, it is not the perfection of discipline, and doesn’t follow the precepts.
We know very little about precepts, but the five basic precepts we all heard about are: prohibition of killing, prohibition of theft, prohibition of sexual misconduct, prohibition of wrong speech, prohibition of intoxication. We might understand the prohibition of killing as simply being a vegetarian. Indeed, the prohibition of killing is not only simply being a vegetarian, and “life release”. Every cultivation practice of the Great Vehicle is related to “heart and mind”. If you still have jealousy, anger and hate, the killing heart can rise anytime. For example, when you are jealous of others, you wish them to die. Even if this is only a rising thought in your mind, one day, when you possess superior power and authority – such as empress Wu Zhe Tian or Ci Xi, Hitler or Napoleon, all those people – if you have the same power and authority as them, you will eliminate people that you dislike, that could be a threat to your power or people that make you jealous. When you don’t have the power, you only think about it – this is called the killing heart. Jealousy, anger and hate, revenge, greediness, are all the causes of killing. These causes are still there within you. Human’s killing heart will not disappear only by being a vegetarian.
For example, during Buddha’s time, because his disciples followed the precepts of prohibition of killing, they were afraid of cleaning the monastery, because when they were cleaning, they would hurt some very small insects. But there were too many pests, affecting their sleep and cultivation. Thus, Buddha told them, if they have no thought of killing, then, cleaning the monastery was only to remove grime. Even if they accidentally hurt small insects, this doesn’t violate the precept of prohibition of killing.
Actually, we often kill insects, but do we violate the precept? For example, I was bitten by mosquitos in a tent. Got up and found it on the wall, killed it, and then looked at the mosquito blood spreading on the wall, suddenly at that moment, a very happy feeling rose in my heart. I felt, “finally I killed you.” This is the very subtle killing heart that is difficult for us to perceive. We feel excited about its death. This violates the precept of the prohibition of killing.
The prohibition of theft means do not take things that don’t belong to you. This seems easy to follow. We don’t take things that don’t belong to us. But this precept doesn’t only mean material things, it also includes heart and mind, such as emotions and love, power and authority, knowledge, and all spiritual things. Human greediness and possessiveness have causes. Human desires will never be satisfied. We will want to possess everything we like for ourselves. We want to steal everything from this world, to satisfy our need for reputation, greed, emotional and sexual desires. Our heart of theft is always there, hard to die.
The precept of the prohibition of sexual misconduct: Humans came from sexual intercourse. Sexual desire is within every cell of human beings. There are three aspects if we divide it strictly: love, emotions, desire. Desire is to satisfy the lowest level: physical and material – it will be fulfilled if there is stimulation and excitement. For example: prostitution. A man and a woman don’t know each other, just purely gathering for sexual intercourse, like a game in bed. Emotion involves the aspect of understanding, communication and common ground of man and woman. They understand and appreciate each other, follow their emotions, and fall into sexual relations, etc. Love is a higher aspect. Love is regardless of whether the person you love loves you back or not, you can provide enough forgiveness and tolerance, to a point that you don’t ask for anything in return. When human life rises up to love from sexual desires, there won’t be any sexual misconduct. Maybe sexual satisfaction is still needed, but behaviors, speeches and thoughts are very righteous. You will see such a person full of positive and righteous energy – right behaviors, right speeches, right thoughts. If you see a person you like, you will be all over that person, you like this one today, and another the next day, or you can show your emotions to a few people at the same time, like saying flirty words and creating flirty ambiance, etc. These are all the causes for sexual misconduct. Sexual misconduct can make people restless, whimsical, and completely distracted. Thus, it’s very difficult to maintain the right Samadhi.
The precept of the prohibition of wrong speech is the prohibition of lying; we must be honest and not deceive others. We lie to protect our private needs and profits. Lies might or might not create damage and pain to others – either way, this violates the precept.
The precept of the prohibition of intoxication through alcohol – this means that don’t let your right behaviors, right speeches and right thoughts be affected by alcohol consumption. Of course sometimes, you can drink a little bit, but the precept of Buddhism for the disciples in the monastery at that time required not drinking alcohol. For me, prohibiting drink changes to prohibiting binge drinking. This means do not let your right behaviors, right speeches and right thoughts be affected by drinking, which will consume and distract your energy. Of course, the precept for the present practitioners also includes prohibiting anesthetics and drugs.
Therefore, the key point of the perfection of the precept of discipline is to check the unwholesomeness within practitioner’s heart and mind through all sorts of conducts, be aware and alert of our greediness, anger and hate, ignorance in our heart, and then correct them right away. This is “the precept of watching over and disciplining your heart”. This is the precept of the perfection of discipline to enter the liberation door of the path of the Great Vehicle.
The perfection of forbearance is to enter the liberation through forbearance and tolerance. Forbearance and tolerance don’t mean taking everything without a question, and letting people abuse you without any resistance. But when you face these people who bully you and when you are in a very unjust and unequal environment and situation, you don’t raise any anger and hate from your heart. Regardless of superficially how you try to bear and tolerate, or being resistant, this is not following the precept of the perfection of forbearance. The “forbearance” of the perfection of forbearance means to be pacified in all situations, and be aware of their emptiness. This means you have nothing to bear or tolerate. However, because you still distinguish and are attached to forms, you believe that you need to bear it. In any state, if we can constantly watch over “the person is empty and the Dharma is empty”, let ourselves be liberated from the distinctive feelings and perceptions from the six faculties, even when we get angry, if there is no poison of anger and hate, then we can enter the liberation door. For example, we often educate children, scold them, sometimes even hit them – we are angry but we are not hateful, there is still the foundation of love. But when we fight with others, we are hateful and angry – we are not angry for the sake of loving them.
In Tibetan Esoterism, we can see many Buddha statues that manifest a ferocious appearance with a green face and jagged teeth. This is because they have already realized the nature of emptiness. All this anger is the manifestation of the marvelous existence from true emptiness, and they have very powerful blessings. They are based on compassion and emptiness.
The perfection of diligence enters the liberation door through diligence. There are different sorts of diligence. For example, when you hear the right Dharma, you immediately can let go your previous unwholesome deeds, let go meaningless world affairs that merely waste your time and life, and raise the heart of hearing and learning the right Dharma. This is also called diligence. When we cultivate Buddhism, bear what we can bear, let go what we can let go, carefully use our heart to keep our right cultivating attitude in every moment, persistently cultivate and realize our master’s lecture and assignment, do not give ourselves any excuse to be slack. These are all the perfection of diligence.
The perfection of Zen Samadhi enters the liberation door from Zen Samadhi. In the Great Vehicle, there are several types of Zen Samadhi: First, the Arhats’ Samadhi of extinction of thoughts. Secondly, the Samadhi of freely entering all dimensions of Bodhisattvas. Thirdly, the Tathāgata’s (Buddha’s) Samadhi of emptiness.
The perfection of Prajna wisdom is attained through Zen Samadhi. In Buddhism, Samadhi can raise wisdom. The Arhats’ Samadhi of extinction of thoughts, the Samadhi of freely entering all dimensions of Bodhisattvas, and the Tathāgata’s Samadhi of emptiness – can only gradually be understood through cultivation and realization.