Merit and virtue

People commonly use the two words phước and đức together. However, the two words have different meanings.

When we benefit others, later we will enjoy one or many joys. A good karmic deed lays up a good karmic result in the future. From the standpoint of the Fundamental Nature, as soon as the karmic cause is created, the karmic result has already appeared. But in physical space, the time for a cause to arrive at a result is rather long. It is said that as soon as a good deed is done, merit appears invisibly to guard the karmic result so that it is not lost. Merit is compared to a cheque. The more money deposited in the bank, the greater the cheque's value. The more good one does, the deeper and thicker one's merit. Someone who has benefited many people is said to have merit.

When conditions are complete, merit immediately turns into a good karmic result, and that person enjoys much happiness. This view arises from the standpoint of physical space; from the standpoint of the Fundamental Nature, the whole of the future karmic result has already been laid out. Each karmic result has already been assigned a moment at which it will appear.

Even so, we may still say that a person who has done many good deeds and benefited many people has much merit.

So MERIT comes from benefiting others.

Đức, on the other hand, is the goodness of one's own mind.

For example, a person who diligently purifies their thoughts, keeps the precepts carefully, practises meditative concentration and wisdom, and loves everyone with a compassionate heart is called a person of VIRTUE. But virtue is not yet merit!

Only when this person sets about helping others, teaching morality to everyone, passing on methods of meditation practice and so on, does this person have merit.

Being good oneself is called virtue.

Benefiting others is called merit.

There are cases where, wanting to become famous, some wealthy people donate large sums to charity appeals. Some companies do good deeds as part of their advertising. Because their underlying intentions are not good and serve only personal ends, they have merit but no virtue.

Conversely, some practitioners purify their inner minds until they are white as snow, live in seclusion in remote places and have little contact with others. Such a person has virtue but no merit.

According to the legend of Chinese Chan Buddhism, when Emperor Liang Wu boasted that he had built temples and ordained many monks, Patriarch Bodhidharma declared that there was no công đức at all. Later, Patriarch Huineng explained that something can be called công đức only when one has awakened to one's pure self-nature.

In truth, a person with a pure and noble inner mind already has a share of merit, and the good thoughts of that mind constantly radiate through space and quietly infect everyone's minds. Even enlightened Zen masters, whose minds do not give rise to good thoughts, still radiate a good mind around them. Although they do not deliberately conceive good thoughts, their serene, selfless and compassionate inner state still has a great influence. But this merit is not very large, because it has no concrete, clear and powerful effect.

A person who understands the Way thoroughly needs to know how to gather both merit and virtue in full. For virtue and merit support each other. Only when the mind is good will good deeds be thorough and lasting. Only when virtue is deep will merit be great. Conversely, in doing good deeds we strengthen the goodness of our own minds. Moreover, if someone makes merit without virtue and does good for selfish ends, there will surely come a time when he does evil, because every thought will one day arise as action. His merit will be limited and unable to grow without end.

And a true practitioner must also resolve to benefit others, for two reasons:

First, by benefiting others, this person has enough merit to be well fed and to have a peaceful environment in which to advance in inner meditative practice.

Second, only by forgetting oneself in caring for others does the attachment to self break down more quickly. Besides, a person is called selfless only when that person is completely altruistic.

We should not lean too far towards making merit and forget to cultivate the deep inner Ethics, nor lean too far towards the goodness of our own minds and forget to benefit others in the outer world.