Two Paths to Building a Future

Everyone alive is working to build their own future. We send our children to school to build a future; we take up honest livelihoods for the future; we come to ordain for the future too — because life in samsara is so long that no end can be found, and as long as we have not attained arahantship, we must keep circling through birth and death again and again, until a clear vision arises and wisdom lets us see where our future actually ends. Since samsara itself has no discoverable end, we must find a real conclusion — and there are only two: the ultimate end of Dhamma, or the attainment of arahantship. We choose to aim toward the ultimate end of Dhamma, coming to teachers within this special lineage of merit whose purpose is to benefit all beings, to help liberate them, and to bring them to that ultimate end.

Our future therefore has two dimensions — worldly and spiritual — as laid out in the teacher's "Blessings of Life" sheet, split into two columns. The green, left-hand side, items 1 through 21, is the path for living a worldly life. Once we have achieved a certain level of worldly purpose, we move on to learning aimed at spiritual purpose, the pink, right-hand side, items 22 through 38.

Six Foundations for Studying Dhamma: Respect and Humility

There are six essential foundations for studying Dhamma, beginning with respect — a sphere that governs us. Once we develop this sphere, it automatically controls us toward politeness and good manners, both outwardly in conduct and inwardly by connecting us to Dhamma so we come to know and understand. The Knower links us to the relevant teachings among the 84,000 sections of the Dhamma so we can attain wisdom-liberation (paññā-vimutti), while the One of Power teaches us to put it into practice and refines us toward mind-liberation (ceto-vimutti).

Beyond respect, we also need the foundation of humility. This is a wholesome sphere that keeps us from becoming hardened, making us willing to listen, willing to learn — whoever has something good to offer, we learn from them and gather what is beneficial into ourselves. It is like the moon, which has no light of its own but borrows the sun's light, holds it, and uses it to benefit all beings through the night.

Attainment Happens Moment by Moment, Like Eating a Meal

Attainment doesn't arrive all at once — it begins with practice in each single moment. The inner mechanism gradually brings us to attainment step by step, in small increments; we must observe and practice. Once we practice, results arise in every single moment — just like eating rice: the very first spoonful already brings some degree of fullness, the next spoonful a little more, and so on from the very start. But if we don't observe carefully, ignorance will cover and obscure our understanding, and we'll tell ourselves that practicing hasn't led anywhere — when in truth, practice simply means putting it to use, and the moment we use it, results are already there.

Worldly Knowledge Only Reaches a Capped Happiness

When we send children to school, they learn worldly knowledge — knowledge oriented toward worldly happiness, which is small and not enough to be substantial. So we must teach the remainder ourselves once they're home: knowledge oriented toward purity paired with happiness. Worldly education can only give knowledge oriented toward a capped happiness — enough to sustain a livelihood but not enough to escape the dangers of samsara. We must teach the rest ourselves, because children have no way of knowing where to find knowledge oriented toward purity paired with happiness. Coming to ordain is how the teacher himself came to understand that happiness comes in two kinds.

Two Kinds of Happiness: Worldly Capped Thrill vs. Dhamma's Endless Depth

The happiness that makes the heart race with excitement is worldly happiness — and that's all it can give. Happiness through Dhamma, by contrast, is oriented toward peace, stillness, dispassion, liberation, and purity — leading toward Nibbana. It is a happiness that deepens and refines continuously: happy, then happier still, and the more refined it becomes, the happier it gets — a happiness without end. This differs from worldly happiness, which is capped: watching a movie or listening to music gives only so much happiness and no more; eating gives only fullness and can go no further; delicious food gives only fullness; beauty fades to old age within a few years. All of it is limited.

Wisdom-Liberation and Mind-Liberation: Tools for Freeing One Dimension at a Time

What matters most is that we let our children and grandchildren know about the essential tools: wisdom-liberation (paññā-vimutti) and mind-liberation (ceto-vimutti). Wisdom-liberation is knowing and understanding beneficial information capable of drawing pure energy — merit — to flow in and drive the wholesome system, correcting and refining the elements within us until they are clean and pure. Once purified, the attachments binding us to the coarser dimension fall away, and we are freed from that coarser dimension into a subtler one. Yet every dimension still carries some defilement as long as arahantship has not been attained; in the subtler dimension, the coarse defilements have shed away, leaving only subtler defilements, and we continue to dwell within the wholesome system, drawing in pure energy to cleanse the subtler defilement at that level. Liberation proceeds one dimension at a time, like this.

Dhamma Is Like Salt in Water: It Sets in the Heart and Shows Its Own Qualities

When we learn a wholesome teaching, that teaching arises within our heart and displays its own qualities there — we come to know and understand because it has taken root in the heart. It's like putting salt into water: the salt reveals its quality as saltiness; putting in sugar reveals sweetness. Dhamma works the same way — once learned, it settles in the heart and reveals its qualities on its own. The heart is our instrument of knowing; whether wholesome or unwholesome, once something settles there, it shows its effect, and however the heart knows it, that is how we know it. At the same time, a wholesome teaching draws in wholesome energy — merit — to flow in and drive the wholesome system's work of correction and refinement. No system can run on its own; every system needs energy. The wholesome system runs on merit; the unwholesome system runs on demerit. If we let something impure — adhamma — take root in the heart, it displays the results of adhamma, making the heart clouded, and we can feel the current of adhamma as it spreads its qualities outward, drawing in the energy of demerit to drive the unwholesome system, pressing our quality downward. All of this happens automatically. We only need to learn the mechanism and set wholesomeness in motion. Once we understand this, life becomes easy — we do very little, because everything runs automatically; a small effort is all it takes.

The Universal Monarch Within: Manager of the Streams of Merit and Wealth

Within us dwells a Universal Monarch (Chakkavatti), residing at the center of the sphere of merit, managing resources on our behalf. This inner monarch knows how to manage subtle treasures, knows where good things are, knows the right methods, knows where truly good helpers are and how to draw them in, knows where honest staff who will genuinely look after our interests can be found. We ourselves know none of this — but the Knower within the sphere of merit is charged with managing it and can help us. This means our own role is to draw in pure energy — merit — together with subtle treasures, because we are the owner of this body. Once merit, composed of pure energy and subtle treasures, comes in and is stored within the sphere of merit — held inside the sphere of Dhamma where the jeweled mind of the Monarch resides — the Monarch can manage it. But because he has no physical body of his own, he depends on our physical body, asking us to handle the important matters he cannot: making the essential contacts and connections. This is not meant to consume us day and night to the point we have no time left for our true role — drawing in the streams of merit and treasure. The Monarch will find others to handle the minor, fiddly tasks, freeing our time for the essential role that no one else can do in our place.

Why We Need New Merit, Not Just Old Merit

Beyond the merit accumulated in the past, we need new merit coming in for our future — we cannot simply live off old merit alone. We must bring in new merit to build and support both our near and distant futures. The teacher himself proved this truth back when he was still a layperson: once he came to know and understand it, he tested it and confirmed it was true. We therefore need to recognize this and learn to rely on the one responsible for it — the Seven Treasures of the Universal Monarch within us — to help us. Whatever task he assigns us, we do; there's no need to do much. Our role is simply to carry out the essential, necessary tasks that no one else can do for us, and then to reap the results.