พระอาจารย์อธิบายว่าการจะให้บุญแสวงหาเราต้องฝึกเป็นคนช่างอธิษฐาน เพื่อเชื่อมกับโอกาสดี ๆ ที่กุศลจะนำมาให้ และต้องฝึกเป็นคนมองหาคุณประโยชน์ ลงมือช่วยเหลือในสิ่งที่ก่อคุณก่อประโยชน์อย่างแท้จริงPra Ajarn explains that for merit to seek us out, we must train ourselves to be people who make aspirations, so as to connect with the good opportunities the wholesome side will bring — and must train ourselves to look for genuine benefit, stepping in to help where it truly creates value.
Someone asked: normally we must seek out merit, but if we want merit to seek us out — to keep gaining good chances to accumulate it — what should we do?
Train Yourself to Make Aspirations
For merit to seek us out, we must train ourselves to be people who make aspirations, because we don't know where merit is, nor the good chances and timely moments when side would bring good things to us. So we must connect — and we connect through making aspirations. When we set an aspiration on something right and good, the wholesome side brings it to us, and good chances to accumulate merit arise: chances to practice, to study the , to give, to keep precepts, to meditate, to be humble, to help in others' tasks, to rejoice in merit, to share merit, to listen to and discuss the Dhamma, and to set one's view straight. The come to arise for us.
Good Opportunities Come Easily Only With Aspiration
These things don't come easily; the wholesome side must bring them, and it brings them only once we have made aspirations, because for an opportunity to reach us easily, it depends on aspiration. Only then does the opportunity come to us.
Train Yourself to Look for Benefit
Beyond this, train yourself to look for benefit. For instance, in a situation where someone is in distress, ill, or short of funds — if we remain indifferent, the chance passes. But if we see it and recognize that they need help, we should help. Sometimes the components of a task aren't yet complete, so only so much can be done, but if we help, more can be done, better, faster, more effectively — and the good done for the world grows accordingly.
But Weigh Whether It Truly Creates Benefit
Even so, we must weigh whether what we're about to do creates much benefit. If it creates no benefit, why do it? Sometimes it's merely the mood to do something, which needn't be acted on. The unwholesome side, too, will seek to jump in and act first — over craftsmen, over funds. So we must see which brings real benefit. If something creates no benefit, help just a little for now. All of this is part of the constant contest among the three natural forces. The training, then, is to become someone who sees benefit — who asks what good and benefit an act will actually create.