The benefits of believing in, understanding and applying the law of cause and effect

Restraining Ourselves, Perfecting Ourselves

The more deeply we understand karmic cause and effect, the more we come to fear its consequences and to practise restraint in every thought, every word and every deed. If we do not fully understand the law of cause and effect, we live very superficially and loosely, simply following our own wishes. When angry, we make whoever we like suffer; when happy, we help whoever we like, on a whim, with no steadiness. Others see us as good today and, the next day, as unpredictable and impossible to deal with. A person who knows cause and effect, by contrast, tends to be measured, restrained and steady: once a good person, always a good person. Someone who befriends us closely can feel reassured for a lifetime. That reassurance for a whole lifetime is itself a kind of happiness. When we make those around us trust our character and our heart, our merit is also very great.

The finest result for a person who believes in and understands cause and effect is knowing how to restrain themselves, avoid every evil and diligently do good. We do not yet know how many thousands or tens of thousands of times over we will later enjoy the blessing, but right now we are already a person of integrity and worth, because we know how to restrain ourselves. A person who knows restraint is a good person. In other words, to be a good person, we must first of all know how to restrain ourselves. Those who must seize whatever they want are not good people and are not people of moral character. So to judge whether a person has moral character, first look at whether they know restraint. There are things we like very much and want very much, but which are not good for others, and we have to think it over three times, five times, ten times, whether to do it, and in the end decide not to. Restraint of this kind is the first sign of a person of moral character.

It is the law of cause and effect that makes us restrained, because we have the wisdom to know cause and to know effect. Even when there are things we like, we always reason through where this result will lead us before acting, rather than doing at once whatever we fancy. This is the fine outcome for a person who believes in cause and effect. If a society had very many people who believed in and understood the law of cause and effect, that society would certainly be very good and very prosperous, because no one would have the heart to make anyone else suffer. Everyone would want to help others live in peace and happiness. When the law of cause and effect gives each person restraint, and the whole of society is like this, we can be sure that such a society would be full of good things. Heaven is not far away; it is the place where there are people who believe in and understand cause and effect, who know how to live beautifully and treat one another kindly.

The way of life of a disciple of the Buddha rests entirely on wisdom and understanding of cause and effect. All of us must never stray from this. That is, every word we speak, every calculation, every programme and plan of ours, must never leave the reflection on the law of cause and effect. Whatever we do or say, we weigh how good or evil it is.

If we see that saying this sentence would create wrongdoing, we stop at once and repent immediately. If we see that what we say or do would create merit, we do it right away. A disciple of the Buddha, all year round, hour after hour and minute after minute, weighs only this in how they live, act, speak and think. So the more subtly and deeply someone understands the law of cause and effect, the more precise, ethical, exemplary, careful, meticulous and tactful their life becomes (they become a good communicator even though they do not set out to be).

When a person understands cause and effect deeply, their life cannot be evil; that is the first thing. Going further, it is full of goodness; further still, they become kind in every small way; further still, they become refined, a politeness that comes from duty, and that politeness is sincere, springing from compassion and love as the Buddha taught. So, once we understand cause and effect deeply, we gradually build up our character and slowly become a perfected person.

A disciple of the Buddha must hold two qualities in the heart. First, to see this life as temporary, fleeting and unimportant; second, to be filled with love for all living beings. A person with both qualities is a true disciple of the Buddha.

Let us look back at our own hearts and see whether we already have both qualities.

Do we regard this life as temporary and fleeting, or do we still see it as lovable and precious, and so become greedy, quarrelsome and full of hatred? It takes the nature, the vision and the wisdom of the Buddha to see this life as temporary and illusory, not worth craving or clinging to. That is the first. The second is that the heart must love people and love all living beings.

When our heart holds those two things, many results arise: because we know life is temporary, we do not cling to life, we are not greedy, we do not quarrel, we do not hate. Because we love people, we devote ourselves wholeheartedly to serving the world. This too is a very distinctive quality of a disciple of the Buddha: neither craving the world nor failing to serve it with dedication.

Ordinarily, those who are not disciples of the Buddha either find this life wearisome, not worth clinging to, and turn away from it, indifferent and passive; or are very dedicated, energetic and enthusiastic but take this life as too real, and so at times feel troubled, resentful, envious...

A disciple of the Buddha, full of love for people, vowing to give all their strength, sacrifice and dedicate themselves to serving the world... will later become a Saint, a Saint who is both at ease and free, liberated, and endowed with great and mighty virtue. Such is cause and effect.

Let us speak of spiritual merit. We see that nearly all temples enshrine the Buddha seated in meditation, in absorption. He sat in absorption for forty-nine days before attaining the Way, and afterwards taught the method of meditative concentration to his disciples. Today, everyone who practises the Buddha's path must likewise know how to sit in meditation and enter absorption, keeping the mind still in the same way; only then are they disciples of the Buddha. When the mind has become still, having let go of every stray thought, every suffering, every trouble, greed and hatred, what remains is only a clear, empty mind, at peace and happy.

A still mind means an inner life that is at peace and happy, and that is the mind of a Saint. The mind of an ordinary person is always thinking, agitated and uneasy, while the mind of a Saint is a mind that has entered concentration, completely pure. The Buddha entered absorption like that, with an absolutely still mind, and he became a Buddha. So now we too imitate him; we too must know how to sit in meditation so that the mind becomes still and free of stray thoughts, which means we are walking the path of the Saints.

But keeping the mind extremely still is not easy. If gaining the merit of wealth, plenty of money, a car and a multi-storey house is already difficult, then the merit of sitting in meditation to attain a still, tranquil mind is ten thousand times harder. As disciples of the Buddha following the Buddha's path, we need to know how to create merit so that we have both a comfortable material life and a mind that can settle deeply in meditative concentration. A person who can steady the mind belongs to the lineage of Saints, and at death will be received by the Saints immediately after leaving the body. However, we must perform meritorious deeds, we must love, we must bring people joy and peace... very much, before our mind can begin to enter concentration. Once in concentration, we enjoy the blessings of the heavenly realms and of the Saints' realm. This is a very great instance of cause and effect in Buddhism.

We have said that cause and effect make our lives more comfortable and happier, but that comfort, happiness and wealth can never be compared with the fruit of meditative concentration. A mind that abides in clear stillness is the mind of a Saint.

Among all the meritorious things we do to help people, such merit is sometimes limited. For example, if we give someone a sack of rice, they can live for a week or a month; helping someone learn a trade helps them for a lifetime; helping someone believe in and understand cause and effect helps them across many lives. If in this life a person has come to believe in cause and effect and has done good, then from this life through other lives they will keep that good cause. They will meet the Buddha's teachings, believe deeply in cause and effect, and go on doing good, so their merit will never run out. Therefore, if we help someone believe in karmic cause and effect, or help someone take refuge in the Three Jewels, we have saved them for countless lives. Of course, our own merit is then boundless.

So for us, disciples of the Buddha, we do the great acts of merit and we do not neglect the small ones. The most important and greatest thing is that we must never let slip an opportunity to help others come to know karmic cause and effect, take refuge in the Three Jewels...

No More Superstition

"Superstition" means wanting a good karmic result while believing in a wrong cause. For example: everyone wants to be rich, but according to the law of cause and effect, to be rich we must first help others, do meritorious work such as building roads, giving to the poor and creating jobs for others, and bear hardship in this way for a whole lifetime; then later we will be rich. That is the true cause.

A superstitious person believes in and acts on wrong views such as these:

Some believe that if they meet a woman or girl as they step out the door, their business will fail. Or they believe that going to the temple at the New Year to pick "lộc" will bring wealth and fortune during the year. (In Chinese characters, "lộc" and "tài lộc" are quite different. "Tài lộc", wealth and fortune, is written one way; "lộc", meaning a new shoot just sprouting, is written another.) But hearing the same sound "lộc", we think they are the same, both meaning wealth, and at the New Year we invite one another to the temple and strip all the shoots from the temple's trees, and later suffer the karmic result that whatever we plant will not grow.

Believing in all these wrong causes is what we call superstition.

Some believe that if they plead long enough with the Gods and Saints, they will become very rich. In truth, this is not so. Actually, when the Gods and Saints see that we are sincere and have moral character, they will help us through some period of bad luck, but we must repay by performing meritorious deeds in return; there is no God or Saint who, hearing our pleading, grants us every wish, because the Gods and Saints are fair.

The people of India have a blind belief that if the body of a dead person is cast into the Ganges, that person will attain liberation. This too is wrong, because to be liberated we must practise at a very high and arduous level. Throwing corpses into the Ganges only produces cholera epidemics, stench and environmental pollution.

Or take a tribe in Polynesia (a subregion of Oceania comprising more than 1,000 islands in the central and southern Pacific), who believed that eating the brains of the dead would make them intelligent, not knowing that this would produce the virus that causes mad cow disease, which spread across the world and cannot be cured. That too is superstition.

According to true cause and effect, if we want to be intelligent and wise, we must praise others and rejoice when we see people who are intelligent and wise. When we see someone who loves learning, we help them have better conditions for study, such as books, pens and tuition fees... Or, if we are able, we put our abilities to the service of the world without stinting. With these three causes, in later lives we will always be talented and wise; it is not by eating pig brains or monkey brains that one becomes intelligent. Eating brains makes us prone to illness and early death, and later to madness. Let us remember: whoever eats human brains will get mad cow disease; cows even go mad. Whoever eats pig brains will later suffer headaches. Eating monkey brains will also later lead to derangement and damaged brains. So to have a good brain we should not eat brains; we should love people, help others become clear-minded and wise, and spread the moral principles of cause and effect to everyone, and then naturally our own brain will grow stronger. We believe this is the only true path.

Superstitious people are usually those who do not know how to serve others and do not understand cause and effect; whatever they do, they do not want to put in effort, yet they want to gain a great deal through actions that have the appearance of being spiritual. By contrast, those who understand cause and effect and hold right view know how to spend their whole lives working hard, with dedication and diligence, serving and loving others. Once we understand cause and effect, we will work a thousand times harder than before, but we will be the master and will push our lives forward, no longer governed by them.

That is, understanding cause and effect, we actively look for opportunities to help others rather than sitting and waiting or being indifferent to what is happening before our eyes. This is very important. Helping others does not have to mean doing lofty things; we can begin right from the smallest matters. That is all, yet it makes our moral character grow. Those small things are also what service and contribution mean. So if we understand and believe in cause and effect, we will avoid superstition and make our lives better.

We know which cause leads to which result, and which result arises from which cause.

Understanding cause and understanding effect, a disciple of the Buddha must be careful in whatever they want to do throughout their life, and must not act casually or recklessly. For example, someone invites us to trade in illegally cut timber. They speak smoothly and sweetly: "Right now timber is scarce, and I have contacts. If you put in a little capital with me, we will bring the wood out of the forest, only carrying a little each time so there is no risk of being caught." Because we are disciples of the Buddha, we must weigh cause and effect: trading in timber means encouraging the destruction of forests, and destroying forests destroys life on earth, and humankind will die. Although it is a small undertaking, the harm is very great. Thinking this way, even though the business looks very favourable with high income, we refuse at once.

Or someone suggests: "You and I could trade rice up to the mountain areas, because the people there are very short of rice. There are too few traders, so rice is very expensive; if more people went to trade, the price would come down, which would benefit our fellow countrymen." That sounds reasonable and kind-hearted, so we accept at once, because this work both brings us a profit and increases the supply of rice, benefiting others.

A disciple of the Buddha must have this kind of mettle. In whatever we do, we know to weigh wrongdoing and merit, cause and effect, and do not act rashly or carelessly for the sake of immediate gain. If we do not know cause and effect, we easily fall into scheming, trickery, wrong views, superstition and error.

Once we understand cause and effect, we will surely not accept a fortune-teller's words: "This year you will meet a great disaster, so you must burn a lot of votive paper money to make offerings to the stars and avert it." We know that to turn aside misfortune and gain good fortune in the year, it is best to perform meritorious deeds. But what shall we do to gain merit? We will plant trees, or go to country villages and repair roads full of potholes... Perhaps that year we will meet with a bad star, but having done such meritorious deeds, throughout the year we will not meet with misfortune. And if we want even more good luck, we keep actively doing still more that benefits everyone.

There are two kinds of people whose words we follow whatever they say.

The first: if such a person tells us to hand over money or the house, we hand it over at once. Why? Because that person has the cause. That is, through many lives their deeds and words have always gone together, so they have built up authority in their speech. In this life, when they say something, we naturally believe it immediately. For example, they come to see us and say:

"I have a small need; if you lend me ten taels of gold, next year I will return eleven." We believe them and hand it over at once. The following year, they repay exactly eleven. We have faith because of their own merit from many lives: they do what they say, and say what they do.

The second is the swindler, who speaks in order to deceive, yet some people believe them. If they tell us to hand over money, we do, and then they disappear. We trust them even though in a previous life they did not have the cause of words matching deeds. What is the cause and effect here? Here it is that although this person is a swindler, in a previous life they also planted merit that they have not yet used up. Later they changed their nature and became a swindler, and at the same time we also owed them some debt, which is why we were cheated. Of course, after deceiving for a time their merit runs out, and once their merit has run out, no one believes what they say.

As for us, if we want our words to carry authority so that everyone loves and cherishes us, so that when we invite people to the temple they come, and when we call for charitable work they contribute enthusiastically... then our words and deeds must match; we must not say something and then let it pass, say something and then forget it, or later we will lose the merit of our words.

Or, if we want our children to study well, be intelligent and succeed, what cause must we sow? Some people who do not know how to sow causes just force their children to study: studying in the morning, studying in the afternoon, extra lessons in the evening, thinking that the more their child studies, the better they will be. That is not so. Being good at study does not come from studying a lot, until the whole person is dazed. A disciple of the Buddha who understands cause and effect must teach their child how to sow causes.

How to sow causes?

- We must respect and praise talented people, without envy or jealousy. A person who sees others do well and disparages them will in later lives become extremely poor at learning, unable to study, even uneducated and illiterate.

- We must know how to teach others wholeheartedly. If we are teachers, we teach students with all our hearts, not teaching half the knowledge and making students come to our house for extra classes to learn the other half. Or, in teaching someone a trade, we wholeheartedly pass on all our knowledge and all our experience, always hoping our pupil will surpass us. That person in later lives becomes an exceptional, intelligent person, perhaps a genius.

- We must use our abilities to help the world. A person who puts their abilities at the service of country and homeland will find that in later lives those abilities develop ten times more than before. By contrast, a person with ability who does not want to serve and is eager only to enrich themselves will later see that ability gradually wither.

For children, we must guide them to sow those three causes from a young age. We will teach our child like this: "With your friends, if someone studies better than you, you must know how to praise them; if friends are in difficulty, for example lacking books and pens, set aside part of your treat money and use it to help your friend. If your friend is even more deprived, you can tell your parents so we can find a way to help them keep studying. With your teachers, you must be respectful, because only by honouring teachers can you become a teacher; otherwise, later you will fail and will not succeed at anything. In the neighbourhood, when you meet older people, you must be courteous and respectful, because if you do not respect older people, when you grow up no one will respect you. Last of all, you must promise the Buddha: I vow to study and become capable in order to help the world and serve the Way, not to use my talent to get rich for myself." If we teach our child like this, later the child will go from average to good and then to excellent in studies, which means we have sown the right cause for the right result.

Or take handing out medicine as charity to the poor. Although it helps them become healthy at first, Western medicines often have side effects such as lowering immunity, weakening the kidneys and liver... So someone who hands out medicine as charity will gain merit but also commit wrong; they often give medicine as alms, yet their merit is not great and their health does not improve. This is because they perform meritorious deeds without understanding cause and effect thoroughly.

Or if we help poor people with money and rice but without moral teaching, we only harm them rather than help them. If people do not know how to love one another, do not know how to practise, or how to perform meritorious deeds, and just rely on others and wait for alms, they will become ever more wretched. So when we help someone materially, we must also remember to let them know the moral principles. Only then is our help complete, and at the same time we build a lasting root of merit for ourselves.

Peace Amid Joy and Suffering

Through countless previous lives, because of ignorance and delusion, and because we did not yet know the Way, we mistakenly created a great many wrongs, and so in this life we must pay the karmic results. Paying off karma is not at all simple or pleasant. Even someone who knows the Way may, while paying off karma, still suffer and be battered by life. When we come to the Way, we are taught two things:

• First, to bow to the Buddha, to repent, and to do many good deeds and accumulate merit in order to lighten the old karma.

• Second, to practise so as to be at peace and at ease when the karmic result arrives.

The Way never encourages us to escape past karma through prayers alone. So, besides praying, we must act to lessen adversity and suffering for ourselves. However, there is one exception: when we fall into a truly desperate situation, prayer can still be answered if we have previously done a great deal of meritorious work or practised for many lives. Ordinarily, we try to live strongly, not begging, only trying to perform as many meritorious deeds as we can.

Ordinarily, when we fall into adversity such as debt or injustice, people rush about, ask for help and plead, trying to do many things to escape that dead end. But we do not realise that those very efforts make us suffer even more. By contrast, if we face it quietly, accept it and embrace the adversity, the suffering mysteriously ends. This is very strange. For example, faced with hunger, many people go to borrow. This makes them suffer even more, because they are both hungry and caught in long-lasting debt. They do not know that the cause of this life's hunger comes from the karma of a previous life. Perhaps, in some life, we once caused a living being to go hungry. Even if it was unintentional and we were not wicked, it created karma that leads to this life's hunger, and now we must pay it. So we should not rush about; we should patiently pay it, and when the karma passes, the circumstances will change.

We do not know what wrongs we committed in previous lives, so we do not know which karma will come to us in this life, or when. So instead of sitting and waiting for karma to arrive, we spontaneously do many good deeds and spontaneously make ourselves face adversity first. That is, we voluntarily pay off the debt of our past-life karma.

Voluntarily paying off karma lets us feel cheerful and in control in every situation, so we are not passive and overly sad as we are when karma is exacted from us. Once suffering has come, and we know it is a debt we must repay, we should not complain or blame life; we should willingly accept the suffering, and then it ends more quickly.

For example, when someone scolds us harshly, we have three ways to respond. One is to become angry and furious and look for a way to curse back. The Buddha criticised this way of responding. Two is to treat the scolding like a breeze passing the ear, not bothering to listen. Three is to listen to every word, embracing and accepting each word. As people who practise the Buddha's path and follow his teachings, we must reach the third level in handling such a situation.

When we believe in, understand and apply the law of cause and effect in life, we will not avoid or run away from it, but accept it and face it, and take it in. By contrast, those who do not believe in the law of cause and effect show two reactions: resentment, suffering, and scrambling to find a way to run away; or pretending to be innocent and deaf, as if nothing had happened. Only listening to each word clearly and accepting each word of abuse shows a strong inner life, the true mettle of a disciple of the Buddha. So believing in, understanding and applying the law of cause and effect helps us reach the level where, when suffering strikes, we sit quietly facing it and accept it.

But this is only the attitude toward suffering. What about joy?

We tend to be delighted when happy or lucky. But a disciple of the Buddha should not be so foolish as to be delighted. Keep the heart calm, knowing that joy or good luck coming to us cannot be avoided. Quietly face it and extinguish the delighted mind, or the merit will run out very fast. Only with calm, without elation at good luck, can we keep our merit lasting.

Moreover, when joy or good luck comes to us, we should regard it as a responsibility that life has entrusted to us, and try to carry out the task well. Living in this world, countless joys and sufferings will come to us. We cannot change that, so let us learn to accept them in order to be at peace even in joy or suffering.

When we understand that the law of cause and effect is absolutely fair, subtle, many-sided, with many angles, and that everything is governed and determined by cause and effect: whatever cause we sowed in our previous life, that is the result we reap in this one. So we cannot run away from suffering to find happiness; rather, happiness is knowing how to receive and embrace suffering in every adversity. It is not an ordinary happiness but one with a rich flavour. We see that the lotus grows from mud; a precious jewel is covered with a rough layer of stone. In the same way, amid rolling waves of suffering, amid countless injustices and hardships, if we know how to accept and embrace them, happiness will burst forth right within those adversities.

When we know that everything coming to us is due to cause and effect from previous lives, whether joy or sorrow, we do not try to refuse or avoid it but simply accept it, face it and embrace it; then we will be at peace and find happiness in every circumstance.

Creating Many Blessings

In Buddhism, a disciple of the Buddha should aim toward the following blessings:

Conditioned merit. This is merit in material life, in bodily health, in mental strength, wisdom and intelligence. In life, a practitioner must work out how to obtain conditioned merit, that is, a materially comfortable life; it cannot be that we practise for a long time and still remain poor and suffering. A person who practises according to the true path of Buddhism will, the longer they practise, gradually escape poverty, have a better life and become ever more prosperous.

Spiritual merit. That is, refining the mind to become purely good, so as to progressively realise the stages of the Saints. In Buddhism there are four stages of the Saints that a practitioner must attain: the first fruit, Stream-enterer (Tu Đà Hoàn); the second fruit, Once-returner (Tư Đà Hàm); the third fruit, Non-returner (A Na Hàm); and the fourth fruit, Arhat (A La Hán).

Guiding living beings. A person who wants to attain this blessing must practise in such a way that when they speak about the Buddha's teachings people listen, and when invited to the temple people come along; that is, they must bring many people to the Buddha's teachings.

At the same time, we Buddhists must aim for all of these blessings: after a period of practice, our material life should improve, our body should be healthy and our mind clear; gradually we realise the stages of the Saints; and the longer we practise, the more people we bring to the Buddha's teachings.

In general, a Buddhist must attain conditioned merit to escape destitution; we cannot accept that the more we practise, the poorer we become, with a feeble body and a darkened mind. If before, we were poor and people looked down on us, and now they see that we go to the temple, perform meritorious deeds, and our life is improving, then they will believe, and our practice is shown to be on the right course. But if we want a materially comfortable life, one that gets better the more we practise, we must know how to sow causes. For example, take the question "What must I do to eat lychees?" The nearest answer is "go out to the garden and pick them." A more correct and precise answer is "if you want to eat lychees, you must plant lychees."

And according to deep cause and effect, Buddhism aims at planting the tree, that is, sowing the distant cause rather than the near cause. Saying "if you want to eat lychees, go to the garden and pick them" sounds near and easy, but we still have to ask whose garden it is, ours or someone else's. Or saying "if you want money, just open the cabinet and take it," but whose cabinet, ours or someone else's? Or saying "if you want to get rich, you must trade"... Those statements are not wrong but they are not thorough; they do not reach the root. The most thorough is still that to have lychees to eat we must plant the tree on our own plot of land, and to be rich we must perform meritorious deeds through our own effort.

Whoever is well off now should know that the lychee tree was planted long ago, perhaps in a previous life, so that it flowers and bears fruit in this one. This person succeeds at whatever they do and prospers at whatever trade. What must they do next? They must keep protecting that root of merit and sow more for later lives. This is very easy because they already have a basic foundation, like a garden that already has trees and fruit; now they harvest, sow more, and look after the trees already planted.

But how should we look after the tree? In a previous life we knew how to love and help others, and so in this life we are rich; now we must keep loving and helping others even more. Only then is the root of merit preserved for ever, growing larger by the day, our later lives developing more and more, and the merit and virtue we leave to our descendants bringing them success from generation to generation.

Suppose we have planted a lush lychee tree, and we eat from it, cut it back and fell it all at once: we are wealthy, but we only know how to enjoy it alone, sharing with no one, and we are arrogant and look down on others. Sometimes, riding in a luxurious car and seeing a neighbour walking by the roadside, we turn our face away and do not greet them. We may even drive so that water splashes over them and not say a word of apology, because we despise those poorer than ourselves. In doing so, we have cut down our own root of merit; our lychee tree is being eaten and ruined at the same time.

Here is what it means to protect the root of merit: we are driving and meet a poor neighbour with a heavy load on their shoulder. If we are in a hurry, we raise a hand in greeting; if not, we stop the car and ask a word or two, cherishing neighbourly feeling, and only then drive on. That is, although we are rich, we do not look down on others; so we are both eating and tending the roots of the lychee tree, and the tree will not die but grow larger day by day. That is knowing how to nurture the root of merit. The more merit, status and money we have, the more we love those poorer and more wretched than ourselves, and so the root of merit is never lost. Each time we let a thought of contempt arise, we put one more cut of the knife into our own lychee tree.

Those who feel their lives are a struggle must know how to "plant lychees". Someone will say that they have no money, not enough rice to eat or clothes to wear, so how can they perform meritorious deeds and help others? It is precisely those who wait until they have money to do good who never will have money. A poor person who wants to perform meritorious deeds must do so while poor and in hardship. Because if we are already poor and in difficulty and do not undertake hardship to perform meritorious deeds, we will never have merit. This is the key that opens the way out of suffering; there is no other way. Never say: "I'm so poor I have to struggle to make a living; where would I find money to do good?" We cannot wait until we are rich to do good; it is precisely when we are struggling and yet more earnestly desire to perform meritorious deeds that the Buddha will protect us.

The advantage of the rich is that they easily have money to do good. For example, the temple organises a trip to visit and give gifts to people of the mountain regions in remote areas, and needs to collect a few more tonnes of rice. A rich household will readily send the temple a few tonnes of rice without a second thought. They do good very easily because their heart does not need to make an effort or struggle much, and that is also exactly the weakness of the rich.

For the poor, who must "carry loads and sell wares on shoulder poles to earn a living day by day", when they want to contribute they must weigh it carefully: "I've traded all week and saved only five hundred thousand dong, intending to buy something for the family. I hear the temple needs to give charity gifts; should I use this money to buy things for the family or take out two hundred thousand to do good?" It is only two hundred thousand, yet they lose sleep and appetite, thinking for several nights, and finally decide to contribute two hundred thousand toward gifts for the mountain people.

This is truly not easy for the poor. Although the material contribution is not much, the heart is very great, and takes great effort. Strangely, the karmic result that comes to the rich and the poor is equal: the one who gave a few tonnes of rice worth over ten million dong and the one who gave only two hundred thousand. That is, according to the karmic result, the rich person will naturally receive a few dozen tonnes of rice, and the poor person will receive just the same. The poor person's weakness is having little money, but their strength is having much heart.

Let us not think that being poor makes it hard to perform meritorious deeds. The heart itself, the effort made bit by bit, is already a meritorious deed. The karmic result that comes will be very great because of the vastness of the heart. The only worry is that we are already poor, already have little money to do good, and our heart is also too small; then indeed we will never have merit. So the poor, even in hardship and difficulty, must try all the more to perform meritorious deeds; precisely because they strive with all their strength, they will surely always receive the protection of the Buddhas.

Once We Have Merit, What Will We Gain in the Future?

First, merit creates opportunities and good luck. People who often meet with good luck do so because they have merit; it is not by chance. Suppose we are unemployed, and suddenly an acquaintance comes from far away and asks: "Why aren't you working? Come and work with me. I will put up the capital for you to set up this business; you only need to find workers, and when you are steady I will step back, since I have other work of my own." When someone spontaneously comes to help us like this, we should understand that it is because of merit, not because we are good at talking or persuading.

Or we are unemployed and happen to go to the temple, where we meet someone who needs a person like us to work for them; that unexpected, chance coincidence is governed and directed by merit. That is, much of the good luck in our lives is because of merit; merit creates good luck, and good luck does not come by chance. Remember that.

Merit also creates wisdom. In the world there are clever people and foolish people. When we face some task, we are good at organising and calculating, attending to it carefully, and we succeed.

That carefulness is itself due to merit.

A superficial person who does not know how to calculate and is not careful and thorough is a person of little merit. Merit creates wisdom, and wisdom creates carefulness, foresight and a broad outlook.

A person who is intelligent and does well at study also has merit. Merit creates determination. For example, we open a farm growing special crops, and someone says: "You're so greedy; living like this is enough to get by, and you still want to invest more." Hearing one provoking remark, we become angry and give up; that means we have little merit. But the person who, though slandered and obstructed and facing so many difficulties, perseveres and overcomes them to succeed, must always be recognised as a person of merit. A person with steadfast will, who does not give up in difficulty, who is not discouraged by opposition and gossip, who diligently strives forward at all times, must be known as a person with great merit. By contrast, a person who gives up hastily after being criticised a couple of times is a person with little merit.