Ways to Accumulate Merits in Everyday Life

We have to hurry when it comes to accumulating merits, so that they will act as provisions for our next lives

The Four Noble Truths

The Artistry Behind Preaching the Four Noble Truths In the Dhammacakkapavattana Sutta as in his other sermons

Dhammacakkapavattana Sutta : The Sermon : The Dhammacakka : Transport to Nirvana

The word ‘cakka’ means a ‘wheel’ a wheel in just the same way as a cartwheel or a car wheel

The Fruits of Merit are Not a Miracle

Those people who are habitually pessimistic, angry, greedy, etc, always attract negative things to themselves

Dhammacakkapavattana Sutta: The Sermon : The Components of the Noble Eightfold Path

The Lord Buddha explained that the Noble Eightfold Path comprises: 1. Right View [Samma Ditthi] 2. Right Intention [Samma Sankappa]

The Ten Ways to accrue Merits can be summarized into Three Simple Ways

Generosity helps to dissolves our stinginess, or our unwillingness to help others

Dhammacakkapavattana Sutta: The Sermon : 3. The Noble Middle Way [majjhima patipada]

Anyone who wishes to escape from the Cycle of Existence [vadda samara], who has gone to all the trouble to re-nounce the life of a householder

Dhammacakkapavattana Sutta: The Sermon : 2. Self-Mortification [attakilamathanuyoga]

This is the practice of self-denial or self-mortification which is a non-Buddhist practice. It is one of many practices favoured by non-Buddhist ascetics such as Niganthas

Examples of the outcome of Merit:

1. A long life because one did not kill in the past 2. Freedom from illness because one did not treat animals badly or cause them distress

Commentorial Metaphors: Indulgence in sensual pleasures:

A pig content to wallow in dung: Indulging in sensual pleasures is rather like a pig, which spends all its life wallowing in the warm mud and dung of its pigsty because it thinks that this is the ultimate happiness.