Forgetting one's merits

Once we have a good heart, everyone wants to do many kind deeds for the world. Kind deeds become the joy of life for an ethical person. On any day when we have not been able to do something kind, we feel an empty sense of something missing.
A father came home from work tired and lay back on the sofa, and his child asked: "Every time you come home from work you are tired, but some days I see you tired and happy, and some days tired and unhappy. Why is that, Dad?" The father answered: "I haven't noticed myself, my child. Probably on the days when I settle work that benefits the people, I'm tired but my spirits are high. And on the days when I'm stuck and can't resolve anything, when not a single person has had their need met, my spirits are lower too."
Kind work in itself gives strength back to the one who does it. The more someone does good that benefits others, the more latent strength they will have in body and mind.

However, when we try to use our whole body and mind to do a good deed, that deed is deeply imprinted in our consciousness. That "deep imprint" also creates a kind of pride, self-satisfaction and self-praise. If it goes too far it becomes recounting our merits, relying on our merits, clinging to our merits and boasting of our merits, which makes everyone uncomfortable.
When we do good, we gain merit, but when we recount our deeds, that merit is gradually deducted. If we keep recounting, merit even goes negative ( - ). When merit is negative, that is why we keep making merit yet our life stays miserable.

But it is not easy to forget our deeds. We do something good, and surely good should be shown off. We did it with so much effort, time, money and mental energy; how can we brush it away? But we must resolve to brush it away at all costs.
Ethics obliges us to do a great many good deeds in life, and ethics at a high level also obliges us to know how to forget our deeds. These two things are an extreme contradiction in the human mind, yet we must resolve to accomplish both. Doing a good deed is a step up, but remembering it is a step down. People keep stepping up and down like this and cannot rise to absolute holiness.

In seeking ethics we must not stop halfway. We must go all the way to the end of holiness. To go to the end of holiness we must overcome obstacles. One of those obstacles is remembering our merits, dwelling on the good deeds we have done and being proud of them. We must practise forgetting our deeds, give all the credit to heaven and earth, and ask only to be a speck of dust drifting on a windy afternoon.