After the Lord Buddha attained supreme enlightenment, he knew that people understood nothing at all — overwhelmed by ignorance and unwholesomeness, and misled into wrong understanding and wrong ways of living. So out of great compassion, he had to travel far and endure hardship to advise and teach, because every heart — whether a child's, a young adult's, or an elder's — needs to be advised and taught.

Why every heart needs advice, guidance, instruction, and teaching

If we don't teach someone, they won't know what to do, and so they can't do it. Once taught, they still need ongoing advice; if they still can't manage, we must guide them — like guiding a kindergartner. The teacher explains, but the child is still confused, so the teacher must take the child's hand, line them up, and guide them one by one. After teaching and guiding for a while, only a small hint is needed and the child can do it alone. But sometimes instruction is still required — like a new employee: we can't expect them to know and do everything on their own; we must instruct them on what to do. All four actions — advising, guiding, instructing, teaching — are needed for our own heart, for other people's hearts, for our children, for our household. Ask yourself: if we didn't know something, could we manage on our own? It would be hard.

Understanding the three natures that take turns possessing us

Some people connect readily with wholesomeness, and wholesomeness will advise and teach them. But other natures work differently — the neutral nature invites play, eating, dancing, outings, anything that brings no real benefit; it takes neither the good nor the bad, simply because that is its nature. We cannot blame someone for this, since that is simply how their nature works — their aim is neither good nor bad. So we learn to read how much of each nature is present in each person. As for unwholesomeness, needless to say, its aim is to draw sin inward, and once that is its aim, it must find ways to disturb both itself and others — otherwise how could it draw sin in? We need to understand that this is simply how nature works, and observe the people around us — our children, those nearby — to see whether sin, merit, or neutral energy is flowing through them at any given moment, which we can read from their behavior in body and speech. We can't know directly what's in someone's heart, but when a given nature possesses them, its body overlays theirs, and behavior shows it: polite and refined behavior is wholesome, coarse and harsh behavior is unwholesome. The same applies to mental factors — greed, aversion, and delusion, along with the hindrances, are unwholesome; whatever is neither good nor bad is neutral. Energy is always flowing through us; which type it is depends on which nature has taken possession.

Merit is the pure energy that drives life

If you tell someone that doing good earns merit, they're confused — what even is merit, and why should they want it? If they don't know what merit is, how could it benefit them, and why would they be drawn to want it? So merit must be explained: it is pure energy that drives our life to be good. Every system needs energy to run itself — refrigerators, fans, air conditioners, cars — everything needs energy to operate; without energy, nothing runs. There are many kinds of energy: a diesel car needs diesel fuel, a refrigerator needs electricity — each is different, but all need energy to run. Our life, too, needs food to generate energy so that life can continue and have the strength to work. Our heart likewise needs strength of heart, drawn from the pure energy of merit, to give it power.

The heart's "software": wholesomeness and unwholesomeness induce different energies

Merit takes the form of a clear, bright sphere, and arises only at the heart. For it to arise, a wholesome state must be established — like needing "software" to induce the energy. If that software is unwholesome — any of the unwholesome states among the 84,000 sections of Dhamma, such as greed, aversion, or delusion — once established, it can induce sinful energy. Merit works the same way: when a wholesome state from among the 84,000 sections of Dhamma is established at the heart — and it can only be established at the heart — this software, being a sphere of wholesome Dhamma, induces merit to flow into the brightness at its center. The wholesome sphere itself has the form of a clear, bright sphere, and the merit flowing through it likewise appears as bright spheres — but it is, in essence, energy. This aligns with the scientific principle that a wave can induce a change into energy; we can see the pathway of that energy when the wave — the wholesome state — is established, tracing back from deep within.

The stream of merit: like bubbles from a straw dipped in water

Pure energy, that is, merit, takes the form of a clear, bright sphere. When it wells up, it can be compared to dipping a drinking straw into water and blowing through it — bubbles rise continuously from that central point. Because this happens continuously, it forms the stream of merit. Within each sphere of merit that wells up continuously are pure, sacred Dhamma-elements possessing power and potency, able to dispel defilement and impurity. Merit is purity itself, the opposite of defilement and impurity; when the two meet, they cleanse each other, and whichever energy is stronger prevails. Producing merit is actually simple — it takes only setting the intent to know, or establishing a wholesome state, and merit is induced continuously, like waves in the ocean that well up endlessly, drawn in without limit. Sin bound to this dimension, however, is finite — we simply keep clearing it away, and eventually it runs out, and liberation follows.

Refined treasures within each sphere of merit, and the blessing of precepts

Within each sphere of merit is purity, energy that is pure, brimming with happiness. The happiness that arises supports us in living with ease — standing, walking, sitting, lying down, all with nothing but ease of heart. Beyond that, within the sphere of merit are refined treasures of every kind: treasures of form, wealth, virtue, retinue, gain, honor, praise, happiness, and even the path, fruit, and Nibbāna. These are the qualities of merit. This is why, when we undertake the precepts, the monks give the blessing: "Sīlena sugatiṃ yanti" — precepts bring happiness; "Sīlena bhogasampadā" — precepts bring wealth; "Sīlena nibbutiṃ yanti" — precepts bring the path, fruit, and Nibbāna. This is said because when we undertake the precepts, the sphere of precepts, which is an instrument at the center of the body, induces the pure energy of merit — brimming with all these refined treasures, happiness, purity, and the path, fruit, and Nibbāna — all complete and whole within the sphere of merit.

The Seven Treasures of the Universal Monarch manage our resources

When merit flows through us, refined treasures flow through us too. These refined treasures, once they flow through, are stored within the sphere of merit at the center of the body, within the sphere of Dhamma where the Seven Treasures of the Universal Monarch (Cakkavatti-ratana) reside at the center of the merit sphere, managing our resources. They draw in good conditions — good people, good opportunities, and all manner of good things — to bring about happiness and prosperity, setting up the system on our behalf. The human self doesn't need to do very much; it merely feels as though we're thinking it up ourselves when we go and make this or that contact, because these inner beings have no physical body of their own and must rely on our coarse body to handle small tasks here and there. They don't want us doing too much, because our role is simply to induce merit by establishing wholesomeness, so that merit and refined treasures can be gathered for them to manage.

When we don't know our role, unwholesomeness takes over and misleads us

But humans don't know their own role. When we don't know it, unwholesomeness can possess us, directing us that we must do this or that, presenting various ideas that we come to see as good and right. Once we see them as good, it commands us to act, and once we go too far, problems arise, because we don't actually know what to do or how — but unwholesomeness is directing, with emotion ruling and no real principle or method, just the urge to act, and the result turns out a mess. This draws in new karmic consequences, which compound with old unresolved ones, causing even more problems. That is why we must understand this and teach our children to see the importance of the three natures — wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral — that possess us again and again to teach us this lesson.

Teach children through storytelling; wholesomeness will carry the teaching forward

Once we teach our children, the wholesomeness within them will take this information and teach them again, on its own. We are only with them for a limited time, and it is precisely in that limited window that we have the opportunity to teach. After that, the wholesomeness within them will carry this information forward and teach them itself, because wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral natures are always alongside us, day and night — whichever gets the chance takes possession as the master of the house and shapes us accordingly. But if we don't give our children good information, how can their own wholesomeness use it to shape them? It has nothing to shape them with, because we never advised, instructed, or taught them, so the wholesomeness within them has no good data either. How could we expect them to act correctly without it? They will act incorrectly, or simply not know how to act at all. Not knowing how comes from lacking information, not understanding; acting incorrectly, on the other hand, comes from unwholesomeness possessing and misdirecting them into mistakes. From childhood to adulthood, we have all faced countless mistakes — and behind every one of them was unwholesomeness directing us. Shall we let this happen to our own children? If children have enough knowledge and information, they can argue back against unwholesomeness — knowing what is proper and improper, beneficial and harmful — because they understand. But this depends on us advising and teaching them first. Teaching is like telling a story, chatting casually, sharing good stories with one another, until they feel that the wholesomeness within them is guiding them to keep listening to good things. If we want to be able to do this, we must first learn and understand it ourselves, note down what we learn, review it, and share it with whoever we meet, again and again, until we become skilled at it — having good things to tell people of the world. As we tell these stories, merit flows through us and through our listeners, because when wholesomeness is established, it induces merit to flow through; good things arise for both parties, our children grow wiser, our merit grows, their merit grows, and family life becomes peaceful and happy, because wholesomeness is taking care of it. Once wholesomeness is established, other natures cannot be established at the same time, because the heart can only hold one at a time. With that understood, let us now pay homage to the Buddha — every time we do, let us recall the Triple Gem.