Someone asked: the four wheels of progress (cakka) are: paṭirūpa-desa-vāsa (dwelling in a suitable place), sappurisūpassaya (associating with virtuous people), atta-sammā-paṇidhi (keeping oneself rightly established), and pubbe-kata-puññatā (merit already accumulated in a past life) — why must these four be bundled together?

These four wheels are what bring devas and human beings who cultivate them; once a human being or deva cultivates them, greatness and abundance in every kind of wealth follow within a short time. When we live with a clear goal, a system arises from that goal at whatever level we set it, creating a process to drive the mechanism toward fulfilling that objective at each level, carrying forward continuously until the goal is reached.

The key component that starts it all is merit accumulated in a past life — a blueprint of success carried into this life. Once activated to drive us according to that blueprint held within the sphere of merit, it places us in a suitable location. This blueprint carries us to a place that favors the working and driving of the system. A suitable place has two aspects: the elemental aspect (the physical, outer world) and the dhamma aspect (the inner world). The elemental side creates an environment favorable to the workings of the inner dhamma, allowing the wholesome system to become firmly established. Once the wholesome system is established, it draws in merit-energy — both old and new; new merit draws the old merit up along with it — and then carries us toward virtuous people who know the dhamma.

Once connected with these virtuous ones who know the dhamma, they explain things in a way that lets our mind establish the wholesome continuously — whether principles for a right and honest livelihood, or other correct information — allowing the good mind and mental factors of the wholesome to become firmly rooted, along with understanding of whatever knowledge benefits us. These outer virtuous people point us toward the knowledge that already exists within, letting us reach it and connect with the inner knower. Once we've learned and understood the principles and methods, we move into the process of practice until we gain proficiency — that is, connecting with the empowered one.

The next step that favors this development is keeping oneself rightly established, which requires virtue — because the wholesome system connects us with the inner knower and the empowered one, who guide us with a correct, good inner voice that feels like our own thought. Without keeping ourselves rightly established, the unwholesome can slip in and steer us wrongly, leaving our knowledge incomplete and giving rise to various problems. Keeping oneself rightly established is therefore of the utmost importance — beyond the basic foundation of precepts and virtue (the five precepts, eight precepts, ten precepts, or the 227 monastic precepts, according to one's station), it also means honesty, integrity, politeness, and sincerity, so that the demerit side finds it difficult or impossible to interfere, and the merit side finds it easier to guide, teach, and train us.

Keeping oneself rightly established therefore has two parts: standing rightly in the dhamma, and training oneself to skill and correct action. In the learning process, the inner knower superimposes itself to clear away the obscuring impurities so we can reach clear understanding of the knowledge available to us. In the training and practice, the empowered one superimposes itself to clear away impurities until they diminish and disappear, giving us the skill to act as we wish. But how far this can go — how great it becomes, at the level of a village, a district, a province, a country, or the whole world — depends on the merit accumulated in past lives. All of this together is what allows a human being or deva who cultivates it to reach greatness and abundance in wealth within a short span of time.