【Description】
Although this dharma teaching is only 7 minutes long, it contains the golden key to changing your life!
By listening attentively, you will realize the reasons why some people have good fortune and others don’t.
Want to know why? Watch the short film to find out!
【You willearn】
- The importance of accumulating merits and virtues
- The way to accumulate merits and virtues
- The secret to accumulating wealth and good fortune
【Featured aphorism】
- Only with merits and virtues can your treasure chest be secure and large enough to hold more wealth.
- Be a compassionate person in thought and action
【Content】
To accumulate merits and virtues, you can offer lights and make offerings to practitioners. You can offer money, clothes, food or drinks. You can offer a place for practitioners to live and practice. You can do various good deeds such as helping the poor and those who are in trouble. All of these actions help you accumulate merits. Helping the poor and people who are in trouble are great deeds. With such merits and virtues, your treasure chest will be full and secure, you will use your wealth wisely, and it will not flow away.
In the past, if people lived on the highlands, they would dig their own well, because there wasn’t a water source nearby. Many families dug a pit in their courtyard to collect rainwater. Such a small reservoir served numerous families. Otherwise, women had to fetch water from the mountains 10km away. Nowadays, people no longer carry heavy things. What if you had to walk with a cane for 5km? You would say, “I am tired.” After carrying water for just 1km you would be exhausted. A family would be dead tired from fetching water.
Some highlands lacked water; it was bliss when a family had a well. I compared 3 families; 2 were particularly peaceful. The son and his father easily dug a huge pit in their courtyard. It measured 10m x 5m. It was used to collect rainwater so the women didn’t have to fetch water. The 2 gentle families had no problem collecting water.
The 3rd family had a hot-tempered father, and an unreasonable mother. They also dug a pit. They saw rain falling into the pit, but didn’t know where it went. They sought the advice of others. Cement was unavailable in the village at that time. They tried many ways to stop the leak, but none of them worked. When it rained, they watched the rain fall into the pit; then it disappeared.
All the families were situated on the same slope. The family that couldn’t keep water was situated high on the slope. The harmonious family lived further down the slope. All the rainwater flowed into the pit of the happy family below. Finally, the unhappy family had an idea. They wanted to ask the family below for water, but they were anxious about asking. They wanted me to ask for a bucket of water a day from the happy family. I told them that I didn’t know what to do. I did pass the message to the family. They said, “No problem. We can’t use it all anyway. We can share it with anyone who needs it.”
After that, half the villagers came to their house to ask for water. In the happy family, the wife had a sister who came to visit from another village. She said, “These ungrateful people should pay for water. We charge a dime for a bucket of water.” A dime was a lot of money 30 years ago. You could buy 3 or 4 cabbages with a dime. Thus, a dime for a bucket of water was no doubt expensive. Her elder sister said, “Don’t be like that. Having extra money is indeed good, but we know these villagers. It is pitiful enough that they don’t have water.”
She insisted on freely sharing the water with everyone. As a result, her 3 sons graduated from top universities in China. In my opinion, what she did was especially kind and compassionate. It explains why her children were so well-behaved and sensible. When I told this story to my master, he said, “This family had indeed accumulated great wealth but shared it. “Deities will regard them as people who benefit sentient beings. They will give the family more wealth and glory.”
Because the family didn’t hoard the wealth they received, they received even more. So what can we do to make our lives better? Start by repenting past mistakes. Be a good person, be respectful to parents and do good deeds. There is a saying in the Buddha Sutras: “Do no evil.” Next part? (Cultivate goodness.) Right, it is “Cultivate goodness.”
Actively participate in charitable activities, do good deeds, and don’t commit wrongful acts, so you can accumulate merits and virtues. Self-cultivate both intentions and behaviors; be a compassionate person, a good person.
Start with repentance. Do no evil; cultivate goodness. Offer lights, make offerings and give. All of these help accumulate merits and virtues.