Someone asked the teacher why some people who make a great deal of merit — even remembering every donation in detail — never feel joyful about it, while others feel deep joy from even small acts of merit. He was also asked how that joy affects how merit bears fruit, and for a technique to help cultivate it.

Why Merit-Making Doesn't Always Bring Joy

The teacher illustrated this with two people doing the same task, which stands for making merit.

The first person understands that what he is doing is right and good — the same good that wise elders, and every Bodhisatta and Buddha, once practiced — and that it benefits both himself and others. Seeing its value, he wants to do it to the best of his ability. Every time he does it he feels happy, even alone; once it's done he feels proud and wants to do even better next time.

The second person feels indifferent, because he doesn't understand that what he's doing is good or beneficial. Not seeing its value, he does it half-heartedly — whether he does it or not makes no difference to him. He often needs someone to push him into acting, and once it's done he still feels nothing. So the happiness he should have received from it never fully arrives — like someone ordaining for three, five, or seven days who says afterward, "I didn't get anything out of it," unlike someone who ordains joyfully, whose joy carries the intention to keep training himself, life after life.

How Joy Affects Where We Are Reborn

Making merit the right way — with joy before, during, and after — matters, because it connects to what happens after death. Deep joy tends to lead to rebirth among the devas of Tavatimsa heaven, ruled by Indra. Little joy tends to lead to rebirth among the lower earth-bound devas, and no joy at all may lead to becoming a house spirit.

He gave the example — from a case shared with him — of a foreign man who had been Christian, and who had only converted to Buddhism about a month before he died. In that short time, though, he threw himself wholeheartedly into making merit: a wish arose in him, unprompted by anyone, to build a temple and even to ordain, because he had truly come to understand what the teaching offered — not just its benefits on the surface, but its real value. Every act of merit he did in that last month was done with deep, full joy — more so, in fact, than some people born Buddhist who are still caught up in vice. Because his mind was bright and clear from that joy when he died, he was reborn in a higher tier of Tavatimsa heaven than is typical. He did little, but the result was great — precisely because of the fullness of his joy.

Where Does the Joy Come From?

The teacher explained that joy arises when a stream of merit flows in and purifies the mind to a certain degree; once the mind perceives that cleanliness, joy arises naturally. You cannot force yourself to feel joyful if it doesn't come — and if it doesn't come, it's because too little merit is flowing through to purify enough impurity for the mind to notice.

He compared it to a house left dirty for a long time. One day you can't stand it anymore, so you clean it thoroughly — clear the clutter, wash what needs washing, throw out what needs throwing out, rearrange everything. When you're done and look back at it, you feel joyful, satisfied, at ease, happy.

How to Cultivate Joy: Recognizing the Value and Benefit

To feel joyful, we must consciously recognize the merit we're making — first, recognizing its value: how it truly benefits ourselves and others. He gave the example of walking along a road, seeing broken glass or scraps of paper, and picking them up — not because it's your own yard, and not because you have to, but because you see that leaving it there might hurt someone, a child or an elderly person who passes by. Once you've cleared it away, you feel a quiet satisfaction.

He pointed out that people who have plenty of money often find giving too easy to feel joyful about it — they don't know its real benefit, they just do it because others do, taking out their wallet and walking away. Real joy requires effort — it requires certain qualities of mind to be established: wisdom, faith, generosity, kindness, effort, and patience. When these are established strongly enough, they draw in pure energy. Someone who never struggles to give doesn't need effort or patience, so the result is smaller.

He used the example of giving food: the merit within an act of giving food contains five qualities — long life, radiant complexion, happiness, strength, and quick wit — which benefit the giver wherever they're reborn: a long life, a radiant complexion, happiness of body and mind, sharp resourcefulness in solving problems, and strong physical and mental energy. Knowing these benefits is the work of wisdom — it doesn't arise automatically the way faith does alongside a wholesome mind; it takes deliberate recognition and understanding.

He also mentioned a neutral mental factor that sometimes possesses people who give without wanting to know the benefits, keeping them circling in the human or earth-bound-deva realms; those who genuinely want to understand the benefits tend to be reborn in Tavatimsa heaven instead.

Different Qualities of Giving, Different Heavens

The teacher explained that different qualities of mind at the moment of giving lead to different destinations. Giving with wisdom that recognizes value and benefit tends to lead to Tusita heaven. Giving out of respect tends to lead to Yama heaven — often as temple stewards or abbots. Giving out of a sense of duty — such as supporting monks because they cannot otherwise earn a living — tends to lead to being an attendant to a teacher in Tusita heaven. Giving with real joy tends to lead to Nimmanarati heaven. And giving with supreme faith — giving until nothing is left — tends to lead to Paranimmitavasavatti heaven, as with the laywoman Visakha.

All of this depends on the subtlety of the "mind within the mind" at the moment of giving — the finer the associated body, the greater its capacity for joy. We can observe our own minds this way: how much do we truly recognize the value of what we're doing while we do it?

Training the Habit of Joy

The teacher emphasized that all of this is a mechanism that has to be trained — like learning to play table tennis or a musical instrument. It takes practice to build it into a habit; it's not something you can simply wish into existence. The way to train it is to keep an eye out for people you could help — the poor, those in distress — and give to them. Doing so brings joy, a sense of having done what one human being owes another, even if the recipient isn't a monk or otherwise "pure" — because it's the giver's own mind that is made pure by the act.

As for monks, someone with sound, wholesome judgment understands that monastics cannot earn a living themselves; without support, they would suffer. Caring for them, then, is something to do gladly. The more we train the mind to become genuinely good in this way, the more we come to feel proud of ourselves, joyful in ourselves, for being good — until simply talking about it brings joy. That is the sign of training well done.