Merits from DS

[DharmaDefender]

I was just fortunate enough to receive a dharma teaching from my lama about the difference between karma and merit. He said that when you experience the effects of karma, after that the karma is exhausted. With merit however, you continue to experience its effects so merit is never exhausted.

My lama also said when we make an offering, what determines if the result is karma or merit is three factors - the object were offering (eg. the flowers), the motivation of the offering and the power of the recipient.

Now my question is this (and unfortunately I did not have the presence of mind to ask this when my lama was in front of me) - lets say a person makes an offering of incense or flowers or whatever. Their motivation is mostly samsaric, a combination of self-centred gain (major) and also wanting others to benefit (minor).

Next to the person's motivation, how much influence does the power of the recipient have on the result (whether its karma or merit)? I ask this because many people are picking up DS brochures and reciting the mantra, or making offerings in front of a DS image theyve printed from the website. For most of these people, theyre practising for self-gain but unbeknownst to them, theyre also creating imprints of DS in their mindstreams.

So their motivation is mundane but from the point of the power of the recipient, DS is mighty powerful...so based on the power of DS, in terms of the result they are creating from their practice, how much of it is merit and how much of it is karma?

[WoselTenzin]

Whether an action creates merits or karma depends on your motivation.  For a action to create merits, the motivation from the side of the subject must be free of the eight worldly concerns (gain and loss, comfort and discomfort, praise and blame, fame and bad reputation).  Actions that are not free from the eight worldly concerns will only create karma that will be used up once the karma is ripened and the effect is experienced. Merits created will not be exhausted until we reached full enlightenment.

The recipient of the action is done to does have an effect on the merits or karma created.  For eg more merit and good karma (depending on your motivation) will be created if we give to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, people in great need, people who are kind to us or people with higher attainments than us.

However, whatever our motivation may be, any action done in relation to a enlightened object will create an imprint of enlightenment in your mindstream and this imprint will follow you from life to life until you encounter an object that triggers the opening up of the imprint.  For eg, if you have an imprint of enlightenment in your mind and when see a picture of a monk, your imprint may open up and you may start to get interested in Dharma, find a guru and practice. In this instance, the merit you have created in the past will be a catalyst to open up your imprints.

To answer DD's question, in relation to people who pick up DS brochures, recite the mantra, or make offerings in front of a DS image they have printed from the website, whether merit or karma is created will depend on whether they are motivated by the eight worldly concerns.  However, as DD has mentioned below, they are definitely creating the imprints of enlightenment for future lives.

[kris]

Reading the DS brochures, reciting mantras, etc will plaint DS/Manjushri imprints into one's mindstream regardless of their motivation. These imprints will follow us into our future lives until we are enlightened.

When we collect a lot of merits, then these imprints will open up faster in our future lives.

As such, a person may be reciting mantras and pray to DS for money, imprints will be planted, but no merit is collected (as explained above). However, when his situations improve, and started to pray to benefit others, then merit is collected, and it will help to person to open up the imprints.

[iloveds]

@DD to add...

Yes they are making a connection for purely samsaric reasons, but from the side of DS (the brochure) just, seeing the image of DS is enough to plant a seed of enlightenment.

lets take this example:

Your poor as hell, someone passes you a brochure, you pray you strike it on the lottery. Yes its purely for samsaric reasons, but who was the object which led to the result? Was it your criminal friend who gambles and suggests you to buy the numbers or was it an enlightened being who answered your suffering.

Would you not be inclined to make even more offerings for samsaric reasons?

From the side of DS, what result a person experiences is based on merits too, and to be compassionate in nature DS will not grant that which will create more suffering.

In terms of karma... yes the person is creating karma due to their motivation. But the quality of results is due to past merits and also present merits.

Its better to start with samsaric motivation than no motivation at all don't you think?

[Dondrup Shugden]

The point that really stands out in your kind contributions is that offerings without agenda gains the most merits and especially to highly attained beings or the Buddhas.

It also nice to know that even if offerings are made based on samsaric motivation may also create imprints so that we may continue to give.

I was also told that merits can be multiplied when we dedicate any merits gained to others and for others to be benefitted. 

Nice post to read and understand the reasons for doing meritorious acts.

[yontenjamyang]

It is very rare that a being of this age except the Gurus have pure motivations. From the standpoint of the subject being ordinary ie most of us, we are impure and until we achieve Boddhicitta we remain so. From the example given of one picking up a DS brochure, I agree with everyone so far that since the motivation is based of personal gain, the person on generate positive karma and by the power of the object ie an enlightened being, there are imprints left on the subject that will ripened into meritorious acts in the future.
One point I would to emphasize is that for practitioners, since we are impure, we must improve our motivations towards selflessness everyday, a little by a little so that eventually we achieve Boddhicitta. That is one way we can practice, supported by Dharmic activities.
So if we practice and spread DS practice, we are doing that already.

[grandmapele]

Wow...WoselTenzin, thank you for you explanation. Sounds logical to me. At the end of the day, we should not worry about whether it is merits or karma, I guess. We should just keep our eyes on the ultimate goal of enlightenment and if that stays in our mindstream, we will get there, just a matter of how many life times. So, the idea is just keep our practice right in focus and let the small things take care of itself. Thank you again, WoselTenzin