Delighting in Your Merit

It’s good to stop and think about the goodness you did over the past weekend. This is something the Buddha would encourage all the time—that when you’ve done something meritorious, stop and appreciate the fact that you’ve done something really good. That increases the happiness.

This is called taking delight. Ultimately, we want to reach nibbāna, where you don’t have to delight in anything anymore. In other words, you don’t have to advertise it to yourself. But in the meantime, it’s good to strengthen your determination to keep on doing good, reflect on the good that you’ve done, and then dedicate it to others.

We had people from many nationalities coming together to work together in a peaceful way. It’s been in the helping hands of a lot of people for the event to have succeeded. That kind of cooperation is rare in the world. There are a lot of people cooperating doing evil in the world, so it’s good to have some examples of people cooperating and doing good so that we can have a sense of refreshment that we did something good. You just have to encourage yourself to do further good.

Sometimes we’ve been exposed to what they call dana talks, where at the end of a meditation session they remind you that the teacher needs money. That’s not the way the Buddha acted.

They say that dana is a 2,500-year-old tradition, but dana talks have been around only about 50 years. Prior to that, the Buddha was very careful. When he talked about generosity, it was after people had given something—not hoping that they would give more, but to help them rejoice in the goodness they had already done, as a source of refreshment for them. That kind of refreshment then can lead to observing the precepts, developing meditation, as you gain a sense of confidence in your own goodness.

So reflect on the good you’ve done. This is not one of those traditions that makes you feel embarrassed to think about the goodness you’ve done. It was your choice to do the good, and you carried it through. That’s something worthy of praise, something worthy of rejoicing inside yourself, even if nobody else rejoices. But then offer it to others as well. If they rejoice, that becomes their merit. It’s this kind of activity that keeps goodness alive and strong in the world.