The people who have a hard life tend to think why the previous merit does not help them. How could I explain to them?

Question:
Dear Luang Phaw I have a question that I would like to ask you. The people who have a hard life tend to think why the previous merit does not help them. How could I explain to them?

  

Answer
by Venerable Dhattajeevo Bhikku

This is something worth thinking about. For the people who complaint like this, they have to check the causes of the suffering they are experiencing. If it is because they are careless or they have done something that they shouldn’t have. If so, well, it is normal that they have to face suffering because what they did was definitely wrong.

In this circumstance don’t say that the merit doesn’t help. You need to tell them that because they are careless therefore they destroy themselves then what merit can they refer to. This is the first category.

For the second category, they have never done anything wrong. They diligently perform good deeds always. But they still face with incidence and suffering which shouldn’t have happened.

In this case, we have to realize that adversities and suffering that humans face occur from 2 causes:

The first rationale is the misdeeds in the past lives. It is possible that the wrong doings in the past lives came to fruition or in this life during our teens, the wild age that we caused trouble but set ourselves right when we aged. We diligently do good deeds but the past misdeeds are giving results. So this is what we have to take it and bear with it.

We sow the seeds, we have to bear the fruit. We can only remind ourselves of what our Lord Buddha taught us that though the evil is trivial it is better not to do it. When the karma came to fruition it is so painful. When we check to see whether we have performed bad actions in the past but can’t find any misdeeds, this means that those sufferings are the result of wrong actions from the past lives that are catching up with us. The good deeds that we accrued in this present life can’t stop them, because the new good deeds are taking time to ripen as well.

As if you have planted fruit trees such as mango or banana, you wouldn’t be able to eat the fruit by tomorrow. They need time to bear fruit. The same applies to good deeds in the present life even though we have performed massive good actions they also take time to come to fruition.

But as all the good deeds haven’t given the full result yet and the misdeeds in the past are taking over. There is only one thing we can do, my child is to put up with it and at the same time we need to remind ourselves that the good deeds we have performed are still negligible, we have to do them more intensively. If we can think this way, it is the right thought.

But if you thought you have been doing lots and lots of good deeds but sill got attacked by the bad kamma then you gave up the good deeds).  Here, you definitely missed the boat. You sowed the seeds in the past and they came to fruition. Nobody purposely did it to you. You did them yourself and how could you complain.

Let’s look at it this way. I already mentioned about this many times. If we have a glass of water and it has lots of salt in it, say a ladle full. Certainly it is very salty. If we add more water to it, it still tastes salty but not as much. If you keep adding water it will become less and less salty. If you ask whether the quantity of the salt is still the same, yes, it is. And if you add full big jar of pure water until you can’t taste the salt. Is the salt still there. Yes!

The same way, past misdeeds wouldn’t just go away. But they keep crushing on us like the salt in the water. If we keep doing good deeds intensively it is as if we added more water to it, it wouldn’t be as salty. Even though the salt is there but we can’t taste it because it doesn’t have any effect anymore. This is the way the temple goers or people who practice the Dhamma used to remind themselves when they have to face suffering or illness unexpectedly.

When you or your temple goer friends encountered problems, comfort them that it could be worse. Just as well that they have been doing the good deeds, if it is not because of that they might have already been dead.

Therefore from now on, keep making more and more merit then they will be free from suffering. The past affliction will be worn out and there will be no more new sufferings. There will only be merit, which will be waiting to bear fruit and contribute to prosperity in the present and the next life. The Dhamma doers should think this way, which is the right principle.

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