มีลูกศิษย์ท่านหนึ่งเล่าประสบการณ์อัศจรรย์สองเรื่องที่เกิดจากการอธิษฐานและพึ่งบุญ พระอาจารย์อธิบายว่าบุญจะคุ้มครองเราได้ก็ต่อเมื่อเราหมั่นเหนี่ยวนำบุญเข้ามาอย่างสม่ำเสมอ ด้วยการรู้อยู่เสมอไม่เผลอA lay disciple shares two extraordinary experiences born of resolve and reliance on merit. The teacher explains that merit can only protect us when we continually draw it in ourselves through steady, unwavering awareness.
A lay disciple asked to share an experience that had deepened her confidence in the power of merit, and the teacher listened.
Finding Containers for a Sangha Offering Through Reliance on Merit
Just a few days before a large sangha-offering event, this disciple was asked to arrange a number of large tanks to hold several tons of sugarcane juice that were to be offered. After searching markets and suppliers as thoroughly as she could, she still could not find enough of them, even as the deadline drew near. Having pushed her own physical effort to its limit without success, she decided to sit in meditation and call to mind her teachers, resolving that if she truly could not find them, she would fall back on borrowing containers a few at a time from various places instead.
Having made that resolve, while attending to other errands on the temple grounds, she happened to ask a monk nearby, without much expectation. It turned out he happened to have exactly the large tanks she needed stored away, and was able to lend her the full number required — arriving just in time before the goods were due the next day. She said she had used none of her own ability at all; it unfolded according to a store of merit already in place, simply by following the principles her teachers had taught.
Surviving a Serious Accident Through Merit
She also shared a second story, a brush with death. After having her car's brakes serviced, the mechanic had removed and reinstalled all four wheels, but one wheel's lug nuts were left with only a single bolt holding it, and the wire that should have secured the brake disc lock had not been fitted at all. She drove back and forth several times afterward, covering well over a hundred kilometers on a high-speed road, without any sign of trouble. It was only later, when the car was checked at a garage near home, that this serious fault came to light. The mechanic who found it said it was remarkable that no serious accident had occurred along the way. She said that while driving, she habitually kept her mind on the recollection "we are the Buddha image, the Buddha image is us," and regularly called to mind the merit of the sangha offerings she had made.
Merit Can Only Protect Us When We Keep Drawing It In
The teacher explained that both incidents were the fruit of resolutions she had made earlier and of abiding within the wholesome-dhamma system. Having made such resolutions, further circumstances naturally arise requiring us to take responsibility and to keep accumulating merit continuously.
He emphasized that we must rely on merit within - system to protect us, but relying on it does not mean merely depending on it passively, without drawing merit in ourselves. If we depend on it without giving it our time or drawing merit inward, we must ask: where would that protecting power actually come from? Our role is to be the one who determines and draws merit in continuously — remaining aware at all times, never lapsing, letting the wholesome s become established, so that merit keeps flowing in without interruption. Only then can it truly protect us.