A dialogue between a practitioner and a teacher
~~
A practitioner said that she has been suffering from anemia for a long time.
Despite taking iron supplements, the results have not been very effective. She consulted a teacher.
Teacher:
From the divination, your body seems fine. The cause of anemia is that you are
experiencing a certain karma ripening.
I wonder if you had habits in the past of being overly frugal over food and
other things. From the divination, it
looks like this habit is deeply embedded in you over a long time such that your
body and life is overtaken by it.
Now, even if your body takes in food, it cannot absorb the nutrition well
because your mindset does not allow you to truly benefit from the food.
First, arrange some pujas. But you must make more Bodhichitta aspirations (to
purify the similar sufferings of beings through your own suffering)... The more
you formulate such (expansive and altruistic) thoughts and aspirations in your
mind, the more it purifies this habitual force in your mind, and the fetters
will correspondingly weaken.
When your mind no longer restrains your body out of stinginess, your body will
begin to recover…
Practitioner:
Thank you Master. I have always thought that being reluctant to spend on
oneself is a good habit. My mother
taught me this and she is like that too. I will pay attention to making
stronger aspirations in future.
In the first place I was already reluctant to spend on myself. After entering
Buddhism, I believed that spending on oneself was depleting my merits, so I
became even stricter with myself.
Before, I thought that anemia was due to being vegetarian. But nutritional
supplements haven’t helped, so I assumed it was due to karma. Now I allow myself
to consume and spend more but I worry that it will increase my greed.
I still don’t quite understand. I would like to ask: isn’t being thrifty about
spending on oneself considered conserving merits? Why does it create an
obstacle instead? …
Teacher:
When the mindset of stinginess or thriftiness is reinforced over and over again
over a long time, it is not just about the body receiving insufficient
nourishment but one may also experience in advance the suffering of the hungry
ghost realms.
The underlying mental factor of such reluctance to spend is actually
stinginess, it is not really about conserving merits. The more you reinforce
this stinginess, the more solidified it becomes.
Some people, whether they are wealthy or not, are willing to eat and dress
well. When they habituate to this generous mindset over time, they will not
have a difficult life in this lifetime and in future lives, things will only
get better and better. The mindset of willingness to give out or spend is in
itself an open heart and life will improve over time due to this habitual
tendency or karmic imprint.
To determine whether one is truly conserving merits, one must examine one’s
inner motivation. If you use the concept of “conserving merits” to restrict
your body and mind, you may conserve some merits, but the merits will also stop
growing. As you use up your merits, they only decrease, and as they decrease,
you cling on even more tightly to conserving them and your life enters an increasingly narrow path.
If you live your life with an open heart, being willing to eat and spend on
yourself as necessary, merits will also increase in an unseen way.
What is called “merit” is essentially the state of your mind. It is not
some invisible and limited thing. The more expansive your mind becomes, the
more limitless your merits.
Practitioner:
I am willing to spend money on pujas, virtuous deeds, or learning Dharma, it
might be because I know these actions generate merit. But I do not have equanimity since I only spend intentionally with a purpose in mind. I find it hard to understand my own thinking too. My practice is also stuck here, perhaps
this is another form of greed.
Teacher:
We know that making offerings and doing virtuous deeds are good. When we act on
this understanding and make offerings, the merit generated can be very great.
However, at the level of motivation, if our intention carries a sense of
calculative purpose, the merit can easily be exhausted. When virtuous actions
are done with the motivation of Bodhicitta, that merit will continue to grow
and increase.
In samsara, what is constantly reinforced and solidified in the mind is our
habitual tendencies—such as greed, anger, stinginess, and other afflictions. As
one goes through life after life, the dominant habits become increasingly
solidified. These primary habits are what binds us within samsara. Therefore,
practice must be directed towards dissolving one’s main habitual tendencies.
It is not the case that once you become willing to eat and dress well, your
mind will immediately turn greedy—it does not happen that quickly. As long as
the tendency of stinginess has not dissolved, your mind will continue to be
governed by stinginess. Only after stinginess has been dissolved entirely, will
other weaker afflictions arise to take the lead.
For example, if someone has a very strong tendency toward arrogance and they work very hard at doing virtuous deeds and making offerings, the merit generated can be very great. However, if their primary affliction—arrogance—has not been effectively countered, then what determines the direction of their present and future lives will still be that arrogance.
