พระอาจารย์เล่าประสบการณ์ตั้งวัดที่นิวซีแลนด์ ที่มีคนไทยถูกดึงดูดมาช่วยงานล่วงหน้าเจ็ดวันพอดีก่อนใบอนุญาตจะออก เป็นตัวอย่างของการขวนขวายในกิจอันเป็นหนึ่งในบุญกิริยาวัตถุ และตอบคำถามเรื่องการขาดแคลนทรัพย์ว่าจักรพรรดิอาจนำบุญไปแก้วิกฤตที่หนักกว่าก่อนPra Ajarn recounts founding a temple in New Zealand, where a Thai visitor was drawn to arrive exactly seven days early — right before a permit finally came through — as an example of the meritorious act of eagerly assisting others, and answers a question about financial hardship, explaining that the Universal Monarch may be redirecting merit toward a more urgent crisis first.
Today's topic is "eagerness in helping with others' affairs," one of the orious action. Being able to help someone requires wholesome support working behind the scenes; without that support, even someone who wants to help simply cannot, because the other person's own kammic result may prevent even a willing helper from succeeding. This is why we ourselves must be eager to help others — because we too need help in return, and the merit we generate through such eagerness draws people to help us at just the right moment.
Pra Ajarn recounted an experience founding a temple on the South Island of New Zealand about twenty-some years ago, when he had been ordained seven years. A Thai person had signed a contract with an Indian employer to open a shop at a shopping center in that city, but arrived seven days early with nowhere to stay, so they came to stay at the temple's practice center, which had just relocated and needed extensive renovation. This person helped prepare meals to offer the monks, tend the garden, and assist with various tasks for all seven days until the center was successfully set up. Meanwhile, their business permit still hadn't been issued and was working its way through the process. On the very last day, just as the work at the temple was finished — around four in the afternoon — the employer called to say work could begin the next day. Pra Ajarn saw this as the fruit of merit from once having been eager to help with others' affairs, which in turn drew people to eagerly help with our own — because some tasks simply cannot be done alone, requiring others' help. Our lives work the same way: we must help and support others, and in time, merit draws people to support us as well.
Everything we accomplish rests on merit working behind the scenes. If we feel lacking in some area, it means our merit in that area isn't yet sufficient — resolve firmly for it to arise. When we ourselves are lacking, we cannot support others; we must first find ways to help others, and once we begin helping, things will start filling in for us too. Turn crisis into opportunity this way.
Someone then asked how to avoid present financial hardship. Pra Ajarn explained that normally the Universal Monarch's task is to find wealth for our use; if we're still struggling, it may be because the Monarch has redirected our merit to resolve a more severe crisis first. We shouldn't focus only on wealth — other, more serious crises, such as an accident causing loss of limb, a serious illness, or a bankruptcy crisis, all require merit to be diverted there first to resolve them. Realizing this, what we should do is help the Monarch by generating more merit — intensifying our precepts, for instance from five precepts to eight, regularly giving, keeping precepts, and meditating, using the spheres of morality, concentration, and wisdom already within us to draw in more merit, while resolving for these crises, including the financial one, to pass. The Monarch already knows his role and tries to find a solution — but part of the hardship we face comes from living off old merit alone, without creating new merit, or creating only a little, not enough to resolve the crisis. We must recognize this and hasten to create more merit.