The Principle of Cultivating and Consuming Merit

The merit needed for cultivating the Path is insufficient for sentient beings, so on the one hand one must continually cultivate and create merit, and on the other hand one must economize on merit as much as possible. Merit disappears very quickly: once merit is enjoyed, it is extinguished; if one boasts of oneself or destroys others, or receives praise from others, the merit is consumed; if one commits evil karma—harboring anger, jealousy, slander, divisive speech, or harsh speech—the merit vanishes. Of course, performing wholesome karma increases merit: benefiting others and the community increases merit; improving one's moral character and keeping a kind heart increases merit. Meditative concentration (samādhi) can increase merit, extensive learning can increase merit, keeping precepts can increase merit, forbearance can increase merit, and of course various acts of generosity (dāna) can increase merit even more. Some people, however, prefer to perform much generosity; they originally had quite a lot of merit, yet they always feel they have no merit, and nothing goes smoothly for them no matter what they do. Why is this? In fact, it is because this person has heavy afflictions, is habituated to committing evil karma, frequently loses their temper and gives rise to anger, loves to be jealous of others, and at work always squeezes people out and is overly competitive. Those who are overly competitive find it hard to accumulate merit and will even deplete it; being jealous and squeezing others out, harming others' interests—these are of course all things that damage one's own merit. 

A kind mind, kind speech, and kind bodily conduct are the way to accumulate merit. Conversely, heavy afflictive habits, a narrow mind, unkind speech with a fondness for stirring up gossip and disputes, unkind bodily conduct with a fondness for committing evil deeds, and an unkind mind that only seeks to benefit oneself—these are conducts that deplete merit. Afflictions are also called outflows (āsrava), the outflow of afflictions. With this outflow, wholesome karma is hard to gather and merit is hard to accumulate; whatever little merit one has will leak away because of afflictions. Therefore merit is always insufficient; troubles arise at the slightest provocation, the mind is not at peace, and one's resolve for the Path is not firm. When people encounter the suffering of illness, troubles, and disasters, they always assume these happen naturally, that everyone experiences such things, and so they take them for granted. They never reflect on why illness, pain, setbacks, and all kinds of unsatisfactory things have arisen, and therefore they fail to learn the lessons and change themselves. As a result, suffering and distress will continue to accompany them, and nothing goes smoothly for them no matter what they do.