A student brought up a teaching: "Whoever gives something pleasing receives something pleasing in return. Whoever gives something excellent receives something excellent. Whoever gives something good receives something good. Whoever gives something noble reaches a noble state. Our world continues to exist today because of giving — the more we give, the more we receive; the more we give, the more virtue grows. Giving is the easiest way to build goodness, and its benefits to our life are immense. For giving to bring its full effect, the giver must first conquer their own mind, clear stinginess from the heart, and give with joy and delight, with a confident heart, with purity of mind before, during, and after the act, continuing to reflect on the merit afterward. That merit draws in wealth and purifies the mind." He was asked to expand on this teaching.

The quality of giving depends on the quality of the wholesome mind

He explained that every act of giving depends on the quality of the wholesome mind, which reflects the proportion of the three natures present in each person. No one is purely wholesome except an Arahant; ordinary people always carry some mixture of the wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral, which undermines and interferes with doing good. When we intend to give something refined, for instance, the unwholesome often resists, telling us to keep it for ourselves, regretting the loss of something valuable. To overcome it, we must grit our teeth and give anyway, weighing the recipient's virtue, the benefit we ourselves will gain, and the clearing of the impurity of stinginess from a bright mind. All of this requires wisdom — the knowing presence of the wholesome side, constantly guiding us toward understanding. Otherwise, the unwholesome uses ignorance to hide the benefit of merit from us, guiding us wrongly through a voice within our own mind.

The reason "the more we give, the more we receive" is that giving itself arises from the guidance of the wholesome system — the knowing presence attuned to our own sphere of giving guides us, almost like our own thought. Once we resolve to give, the stream of merit flows continuously into the center of our body and heart, along with refined treasures pouring through throughout the act of giving.

Giving food brings five blessings; giving something coarse returns something refined that follows us through every existence

Giving food to people and beings draws in a sphere of merit endowed with five qualities — long life, radiant complexion, happiness, strength, and quick wit — benefiting us wherever we're reborn: abundant food, a radiant complexion, sharp resourcefulness in solving problems, physical and mental strength for doing good, and a long life full of both bodily and mental happiness.

The elder taught that giving something coarse brings back something refined attached to it — that refined benefit follows us through the coarse human body, the subtle human body, the divine body, the Brahma body, the formless Brahma body, and the Dhamma body. We give with just one body, yet the merit-element, together with its accompanying benefits, shines and follows us through every one of these bodies — and it isn't consumed in a single use, but can be drawn upon countless times throughout our lifespan. Giving to an animal, he said, yields the benefit of abundant food across a hundred rebirths as a human being. Giving to a person without precepts multiplies that a thousandfold; to someone keeping the five precepts, another thousandfold; to someone keeping the eight precepts, another thousandfold again — the virtue of the recipient compounds the benefit of the merit continuously.

A single act of giving has a continuous effect, like planting a mango seed: once it grows into a tree, it bears a full crop in one season, and bears fruit again the next season, continuing this way until the tree eventually dies. The more we give, the more virtue grows, because every act of giving lightens the proportion of the unwholesome — the stinginess that whispers we'll run out, lose out, or waste what we have. As that proportion shrinks, beauty arises. In Thai, the word for "refrain" comes before the word for "beautiful" — we must first refrain from, clear away, the unwholesome, and only then does beauty, born of a generous heart, come to be.

Whoever gives something receives that same thing, because a refined mind draws refined energy back

Giving is the easiest way to build goodness — give whatever we have, however little; don't let stinginess cost us every opportunity to give. There's the story of the great benefactor Anāthapiṇḍika, whose granddaughter cried after her clay doll broke; he comforted her by saying they would make merit together and dedicate it to her — a skillful means of finding an opportunity to give. Whoever gives receives the stream of merit in return, and the proportion of the unwholesome within them keeps lightening, bringing immense benefit to their life, abundance, and lasting happiness and success.

The reason we receive back whatever we give is that giving something good requires the wisdom to recognize it as good in the first place. The merit born from the state of mind that guides such giving must be a wholesome mental state, capable of drawing in refined pure energy. A mind of good quality naturally selects good ways to give; a refined mind draws refined energy, and this elevates the very "dimension" — the state we currently abide in — shifting according to whatever mental quality possesses us at that moment. Human beings, in this sense, come in many kinds: the "hell-realm human," coarse-minded; the "hungry-ghost human," driven by greed; the "animal-realm human," clouded by delusion; and the "divine human," whose mind is beautiful like a deva's. A single person can pass through all these states, depending on which quality of mind possesses them at any given time.

Giving its full effect requires conquering our own mind and holding purity throughout the whole act

Giving therefore has an immense effect — elevating the quality of our mind, shifting our dimension, and elevating the knowing, capable presences that guide and look after us, becoming correspondingly more refined and affecting every future existence we're born into. Merit carries the nature of happiness; demerit, by contrast, carries a nature that must be endured with great difficulty and undermines success. Merit, instead, carries refined treasures that support success. Whatever we need, the guardian presence overseeing our resources draws in or reinforces merit to bring it to full measure, fulfilling our wishes.

For giving to bring its full effect, the giver must first conquer the stinginess within their own heart — behind which the unwholesome whispers, urging us not to give. We must endure and steel our resolve, guided by the wholesome and the knowing presence that helps clear away that impurity. Once the impurity clears, giving comes more easily, with genuine joy. Repeated intention helps to some degree, since the mind is itself an accomplishing element. Reverence for the act of giving is needed for genuine confidence to arise, and purity of mind must be maintained before, during, and after giving, by continually reflecting on the merit made. Without setting that intention, the unwholesome or the neutral will pull our attention elsewhere, weakening our connection to the stream of merit — especially after giving, when we should keep returning to and reinforcing the good feeling and joy that arose, to keep drawing that stream of merit continuously. The more merit-element flows in, the more thoroughly it purifies impurity, brightening the mind and making meditation practice easier, since impurity and the hindrances diminish, and with them, the difficulty of life itself.