Someone asked whether the worldly saying 'a person's worth lies in the fruit of their work' is true, and how such results actually come about.

Good Results Come from Connecting with an Empowered Wholesome Force

This saying is correct. The results each person produces depend on the level of wholesome, empowered force they connect with. That empowered force steps in to resolve obstacles, taking one by the hand to guide the work toward completion. Producing good results, then, requires the wholesome side to be ruling the mind, because once wholesomeness dominates, it comes bearing seven mental factors that draw merit in.

Seven Wholesome Mental Factors, and Six Further Pairs That Support Good Work

The seven wholesome mental factors are faith, mindfulness, moral shame, moral dread, non-greed, non-aversion, and equanimity of mind. These seven develop further into six paired qualities of body and mind: tranquility, which calms body and mind so they can function well; lightness; malleability, bringing a gentleness and refinement well-suited to the task; workability, bringing agility rather than sluggishness; and uprightness, keeping one honest and true to the path. These mental factors are the tools that draw merit in to help good results emerge.

Mind and Mental Factors: Our True Self Spans Many Bodies, Many Levels

Beyond the human body, our true self also includes many subtler bodies — the celestial body and its refined form, the form-brahma body and its refined form, the formless-brahma body and its refined form, and the unbroken chain of Dhamma bodies. Those of us in the special merit lineage are fortunate to know of these eighteen bodies. Each body, at each level of existence, carries its own mind and mental factors. A mental factor is the 'mood' of the mind — because doing anything requires first having the inclination to do it. One needs the inclination to eat before eating, the inclination to sit in meditation before sitting. Knowing that meditation is good isn't enough without that inclination — and that inclination is precisely what a mental factor is.

The Knower and the Empowered Doer: Wisdom Gives Understanding, Effort and Patience Carry It to Completion

'The knower' is the sphere of wisdom, made up of wisdom from learning, wisdom from reflection, and wisdom from meditation, developing gradually stage by stage. Its role is to guide and instruct, bringing understanding, vision, awareness, and the wish to change one's life. 'The empowered doer,' by contrast, relies chiefly on the perfections of effort and patience — the one who acts once a decision has been made, with effort as the driving force behind success. The knower belongs to the realm of theory; putting that knowledge into actual practice is the role of the empowered doer. The result or fruit of the work, then, reflects the level of both the knower and the doer together — whatever level each has reached, the resulting work reflects that same level.