Someone asked on behalf of a member: they're under great stress, work is rushed, personal matters need handling, and even though they want to exercise or meditate, they never get to it — by the time they notice, the day is gone. How can life become more balanced and happier?

Stress arises from expectation followed by disappointment. In worldly terms, setting a goal matters — once a goal exists, a system arises around it. But if that system lacks sufficient energy, its components stay incomplete, and an incomplete system can't run, can't drive itself to the goal. Falling short of what we expected produces stress. That energy must specifically be merit-energy; without enough of it, the system simply cannot run. This is exactly why dhamma practice is necessary and important.

Everything we do day to day — this task, that task — only addresses effects at the surface. The true root cause lies backstage, within the sphere of merit, where the real work of bringing things to fruition happens — but it must operate together with the wholesome system. The emperor within the sphere of merit always has to work in tandem with the wholesome. When the unwholesome is master of the house at a given moment, the emperor still tries to help us, but the human body ends up being used by the unwholesome for things it shouldn't be doing.

Consider this: when the emperor draws in the elements needed for something to succeed, it relies on the human body to speak and act according to its guidance. But if the human body has already been claimed by the neutral or the unwholesome, the emperor is left with no time to work with — time keeps shrinking, deadlines keep closing in, and there's no way the task can succeed. Failing to succeed is exactly what produces stress.

Picture it this way: at our workplace there are three of us — ourselves, the wholesome, the unwholesome, and the neutral — but only one car, the human body, to share. Everyone needs that same car. If the unwholesome or the neutral claims it first, the wholesome can never seize its moment in time, and the work doesn't get done.

We must therefore abide within the wholesome system through simple, continuous awareness — never lapsing. Stay aware of the breath, aware of the Buddha-image, aware of the center of the body, aware of the task we want to accomplish, and aware, always, of the wholesome's sound and good principles. If we don't stand on those principles with diligence and patience, and instead let the unwholesome possess the mind, the work gets twisted out of shape and can never succeed. The wholesome and the emperor — guardian and keeper of the merit side — must work together. When the wholesome is master of the house within us, the inner knower brings in wholesome mind and mental factors to support it, drawing in both old and new merit to work in concert, and success comes easily. But when the neutral or unwholesome possesses the mind and steers us the wrong way, what should be done goes undone, and what shouldn't be done gets done instead — and success becomes very hard to reach.