A lay follower asked what one should do when suffering from old karma catches up.

Merit Is Helping Us in Every Moment, Without Ever Stopping

The teacher explained that every life must, at times, receive the results of past karma through the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind — sometimes lightly, sometimes heavily. Small karmic results show up as seeing something unpleasant or hearing something hurtful. Heavier karmic results appear as the suffering of losing a loved one or being separated from someone or something dear. When a "success program" of unwholesome karma is triggered and opened, its current is released, bringing pain and suffering.

But at the very same time, the wholesome side that watches over and cares for us is helping us continuously, in every single moment, without ever pausing. When we are happy, it helps keep us happy; when we suffer, it helps free us from suffering. Its corrective work never stops, not for a single moment.

Do Not Believe the Unwholesome Voice That Says Merit Isn't Helping

Yet the unwholesome side possesses the mind and whispers: "You've made so much merit, and yet it hasn't helped at all" — because we don't realize the wholesome system is constantly refining and correcting things behind the scenes. If we accept the thought that merit isn't helping, our mind becomes overlaid by an unwholesome mind carrying bias, resentment toward merit itself. This is a wrong view, a form of aversion — an unwholesome state that draws in tainted energy, compounding new unwholesome karma on top of the old. Whoever lies behind the accusation that "merit isn't helping" is none other than the unwholesome side itself — yet we tend to accept its suggestion as if it were our own thought.

In truth, merit is helping us at every single moment — there is no moment where merit fails to help. It turns what is heavy into what is light, and what is light, it dissolves entirely. Beyond suggesting that merit isn't helping, the unwholesome side also whispers that we simply have no luck, that we are base and unfortunate — all to push the heart down. If we accept this inner voice as though it were our own thinking, we give the unwholesome side more room to press us down even further, while the wholesome side loses its opening. So we should never feel sorry for ourselves over our fortune — that feeling is itself the inner voice of the unwholesome side leading us astray.

Four Things to Do

The teacher summarized four things to do when suffering from the results of past karma:

1. Never blame merit for not helping — merit is working to help us in every single moment, without ever pausing. 2. Never feel sorry for yourself over your fortune — everyone born into the human world has enough merit to be here at all; it is only that karmic results catch up with each of us, more or less, according to what we ourselves have done. 3. Still the mind and let go of all suffering — a stilled, settled mind is the very pinnacle of merit. Continuously gathering the mind into stillness draws in a stream of pure energy called merit, which washes away the stains of past karma and lightens their weight. 4. Keep building every kind of merit — through giving, keeping precepts, and meditation. When the opportunity to give arises, give right away rather than waiting. Giving establishes a sphere of generosity that draws in a stream of merit to help dissolve karmic results. Keeping precepts makes a sphere of virtue shine bright, likewise drawing merit in to cleanse defilements. And meditating — gathering the mind into continuous stillness — likewise draws a continuous stream of merit.

When we continuously abide within this system of wholesome Dhamma, everything is gradually corrected and improved, until we are freed from the grip of karmic results — from heavy to light, and from light, gone entirely.