Someone asked Pra Ajarn to explain how lives differ so widely, from ordinary beings all the way to nibbana.

Differing Proportions of the Three Natures Explain Why Every Life Is Different Everyone carries all three natures -- wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral -- within them; only the proportions differ. That's why we can sometimes be extraordinarily good, and other times shockingly bad in ways we'd never have expected of ourselves. Someone with a large share of unwholesomeness tends toward addiction -- alcohol, drugs, gambling -- and their life spirals down through prison and hardship. This nature doesn't just operate within us individually; it extends into families, communities, and entire nations, producing rifts, quarrels, and ultimately war.

The Hardest Levels: War, Plague, and Poverty Human life spans roughly eight or nine broad levels of hardship, depending on the accumulated proportion of merit to demerit. The very hardest is wartime, because the whole atmosphere fills with fear and the rage of human beings destroying one another. Next comes plague -- frightening too, but the enemy there is invisible, not other people turning on each other. After that comes poverty -- having nothing to eat -- a fear second only to war and plague in the human mind. All these levels arise from a proportion of unwholesomeness so overwhelming that the "emperor" at the center of one's sphere of merit simply lacks the power to hold it back.

As Merit Grows, Life Begins to Find Livelihood and Stability As the proportion of merit increases, even a low-paying occupation is enough to sustain a life. As merit grows further, work becomes easier and more comfortable -- the refined wealth already present draws in tangible wealth, and stability and income rise in proportion to one's accumulated wholesomeness and old merit.

Worldly Freedom and Spiritual Freedom Once life reaches a stable footing, what people seek next is freedom -- of two kinds. Worldly freedom means being able to spend and live as one pleases, unbound to any particular occupation. Spiritual freedom means being able to ordain or live a holy, celibate life. Spiritual freedom requires an especially large reserve of merit, because living freely as a monastic carries an unusually high "cost of living" -- meaning the merit required to sustain that life, not money -- which is why it depends on old merit built up through past lives of ordained practice.

From a Lay Person's Ideals to a Monastic Life Devoted to Purity Someone whose merit outweighs their demerit lives with an ideal -- a goal of gaining ever greater freedom -- and acts to fulfill it, whether still living as a layperson or having ordained in any tradition. Once there's enough merit to ordain, the focus turns to cultivating calm and insight meditation, developing the Noble Truths, and training for purity -- reaching the jhanas, insight knowledge, the Noble Truths, and the factors of enlightenment, life after life, until the perfections are completely fulfilled and the path and fruit of nibbana are finally attained.

Inspiration and Willpower Both Come From Old Merit Alone Progressing through these stages requires both inspiration and willpower, both driven from behind the scenes by old merit. Only the wholesome side ever genuinely provides inspiration; the unwholesome and neutral natures never do -- at best they leave the mind dull and unmotivated, or lure it into aimless amusement. Someone lacking willpower may be perfectly healthy in body and still lack the strength to get up and do anything at all. This is why we must keep accumulating merit continuously -- to sustain both the inspiration and the willpower needed to keep raising the quality of our life, all the way to nibbana.

Even "Emotional Freedom" Still Requires a Reserve of Merit Someone then asked about a trend among younger people who talk about wanting "emotional freedom" -- inner peace over high income. Pra Ajarn explained that this kind of freedom, too, still requires a certain reserve of merit; not everyone can simply have it by wishing for it. It depends on old merit from past aspirations or wholesome deeds, which the "emperor" at the center of one's sphere of merit then draws on to open the right channels and guide a life that matches what one hopes for.