The benefactor

The charity group was guided by the commune's Fatherland Front Committee to give out charitable gifts to poor villagers in a remote commune. They brought the gifts right to each household to hand out. The local authorities also wanted them to go to each poor home to see for themselves, and also to understand the transparency of the local government. By the time the distribution was finished it was well past noon, and everyone gathered at the commune hall to rest and eat. They also gave 50 gift packs to the commune officials.
The commune chairman came to shake hands with the charity group and made a speech of thanks. He said this:

• Looking at the gift packs, we understand that in your group there is a very kind and deep heart. The gifts include rice, sugar, cooking oil, an envelope of money, and also notebooks and textbooks for pupils, a slim booklet on ethical cause and effect, and a booklet guiding smart gardening. Someone very thoughtful came up with all of this.
  The group set off home and reached the city only in the early evening. They went into a restaurant to eat before parting and each going home. While they were eating, Minh suddenly asked Uncle Vĩnh:
• You are the benefactor who is the main sponsor of our charity activities, but from the very start you set the condition that nothing should be said about you. Why are you so afraid of praise?
  Everyone chimed in asking him to explain. Uncle Vĩnh answered with a gentle smile:
• I fear praise, I fear people being grateful, I fear that I myself would remember my services and talk about them. Because when I was young I witnessed something very cruel. I had a poor friend. He was helped by a rich man in the neighbourhood to study and become an agricultural engineer. He remembered the man's kindness, so whenever there was something happy at home he invited the man over to entertain him. At the feasts the man always told how he had helped my friend, how important it was, how if he had not helped at the times when my friend was in great difficulty, my friend would now be a ruined wreck. At first my friend was very moved when the man told the story, and everyone who heard it admired him. But later, as the man kept telling it, my friend began to feel uncomfortable and regarded it as an insult. The story ended with the two cutting each other off and no longer looking at each other, truly treating each other as enemies. I witnessed it from the beginning and drew a lesson: When doing a favour, one should not remember it; when doing good, one should forget the credit, and then one keeps one's merit and one's affection with others. I do not want anyone to know anything about my charitable contributions so that I may still be loved by the divine powers above 🕶️

Jesus taught: When your right hand gives alms, do not let your left hand know.
If we ourselves should not remember our good deeds, still less should we tell others. If we ourselves forget our own merit, why would we need others to know of it? But saying so is easier than doing. When we spend money, effort and time to help others, we are bound to remember our contribution. Money is flesh and blood, effort is mind and heart, and time, as everyone knows, is gold and silver. Having spent flesh and blood, mind and heart, gold and silver, we cannot forget; we must remember, take pride and tell the tale.
But the trouble is that if we take pride, our ethics gradually wear away, and if we tell the tale, we breed resentment. The more we do, the more pride we take, and our ethics may even go into the negative. That is the reason we see some people who are wealthy but lacking in ethics, perhaps only because they take pride in the good deeds they did somewhere in a previous life.

Making merit without remembering and telling of one's contribution is extremely difficult and a very great test of wisdom. We must observe our inner mind finely to detect and control that mind that recounts its services and takes pride. If we are not intelligent enough to understand our own heart, we will be struck down by the pride that rises up.
In the past kings also feared meritorious officials who abused their power. Today Uncle Hồ also warned against the "meritorious servant" mentality among officials. Life fears those who recount their services. And we must learn to fear the mind within ourselves that remembers its own services.