พระอาจารย์อธิบายว่าการมีทรัพย์และการรักษาทรัพย์ต้องอาศัยบุญคนละส่วนกัน และธรรมชาติ 3 ฝ่ายต่างแย่งกันใช้ทรัพย์ที่เรามี จึงต้องทำบุญให้ถี่เพื่อไม่ให้เกิดช่องว่างที่อกุศลจะเข้ามาตัดรอนThe teacher explains that acquiring wealth and preserving wealth each depend on a different kind of merit, and that three natural forces compete to spend whatever we have — so frequent giving is needed to close the gap the unwholesome exploits.
A lay follower relayed a question that someone had once asked a late revered teacher: a woman living abroad with her family had once won a substantial amount of money in a lottery. The first question was why she had won such a large sum. The second was why, after winning it, the money disappeared entirely within a short time.
Why She Won the Lottery, and Why the Money Disappeared
The teacher recounted the answer given at the time: she won the lottery because, in a past life, every time she made merit, she made the very same wish each time — to win a lottery. But that merit never had the chance to ripen in that lifetime, because she passed away before it could. So it ripened instead in her present life. As for why the money vanished so completely, it was because she carried accumulated karma of , both from past lives and the present one. The moment an opening appeared, that karma of stinginess drew the newly acquired wealth away until nothing remained. The teacher explained that this is why frequent merit-making is taught — so that no gap opens up for karma to cut away at our wealth. Acquiring wealth depends on one kind of merit; preserving wealth depends on a separate kind of merit entirely. A person who is stingy and narrow-hearted lacks the merit needed to draw in protection for their possessions, and will destroy those possessions completely. It's like parched, cracked earth — no matter how good the seed, nothing can grow and flourish in it. A stingy heart is the same: it cannot sustain wealth and allow it to flourish. When misfortune comes, the wealth simply vanishes. So one needs both the merit that brings wealth and the separate merit that preserves it.
Three Natural Forces Compete to Spend Our Wealth
The questioner shared a further account, about a fellow member who, every time he completed a work project and received a large sum, intended to make merit with it but never did so right away. In the end, the money would disappear without his realizing where it went — this happened to him repeatedly, until he finally resolved that from then on, whenever money came in, he would make merit with it immediately.
The teacher explained that this relates to three natural forces that all compete to use our wealth for their own ends. The unwholesome wants to use it to bring suffering upon oneself and others. The neutral, karmically indeterminate force wants it spent wastefully, so that it falls into neither 's nor the unwholesome's hands. When a person's proportion of wholesome strength isn't yet great enough — because their giving isn't consistent, their precepts are shaky, their concentration practice is rare, and they pay little attention to developing wisdom and understanding of the — the wholesome side has no opening through which to step in and urge immediate merit-making. As a result, the wealth tends to get swept away by the neutral and unwholesome forces before the wholesome ever gets a chance to use it. All of this comes down to the relative strength of these three natural forces, operating behind the scenes largely unnoticed by most people. This is why one must find ways to increase the proportion of wholesome strength, especially through giving, precepts, and meditation — which in turn depend on being in a suitable environment, keeping good s, and making sincere wishes as well.
New Merit Draws in Old Merit, Just as New Demerit Draws in Old Demerit
The teacher added, from his own experience, that over the past several years, whenever money came to him, he would make merit with it right away without any worry, because he had proven to himself many times that doing so always brought merit back again. The reason is that when we generate a new cause of merit, that new merit connects with and draws in old merit we made in the past that has not yet been placed onto the timeline of our life — merit which accumulates as vast as a mountain — bringing it in to join the new merit at the same time, making the result flourish all the more. The reverse is equally true: old demerit not yet placed onto life's timeline likewise accumulates and waits for the same kind of opening. If we go on to commit some new wrongdoing, that old demerit will surge in and combine with it, multiplying the harmful result many times over — not merely losing wealth, but potentially escalating into serious legal trouble and court cases. For this reason, one should avoid any action that risks unwholesomeness, and instead diligently keep generating causes of goodness at every opportunity.