คุณยายสอนให้อธิษฐานจิตก่อนขึ้นรถ ระลึกถึงบุญทั้งหมดที่เคยทำมาแล้วแผ่เมตตา บุญจะไหลผ่านมาคุ้มครองทั้งตัวเราและยานพาหนะ แต่การจะดำรงอยู่ในกระแสบุญได้จริง ต้องทำความดีละเว้นความชั่วควบคู่กับการเจริญปัญญาให้เกิดสัมมาทิฏฐิ จึงจะหลุดพ้นได้อย่างสมบูรณ์Khun Yai taught to set an intention before setting out, calling to mind all the merit ever made and radiating loving-kindness, so that merit flows in to protect us and our vehicle. But truly abiding in the stream of merit requires doing good and avoiding evil together with cultivating the wisdom of Right View, so liberation can be complete.
Someone asked the teacher about Khun Yai's teaching that "living in merit, merit will protect you" — what it means, and how to actually live that way.
Setting Your Intention Before You Drive
While she was alive, Khun Yai constantly reminded her students: before driving off to run an errand, don't be careless — stay "in merit." Beyond checking that the vehicle itself is in good order, one must also know how to use merit skillfully. That means setting an intention, calling to mind every bit of good merit ever made — from childhood to now, across however many past lives — and dedicating it to protect both ourselves and the vehicle, asking that no danger disturb us. Even if someone else on the same road meets with an accident because of their own past karma, may that misfortune never touch us or our vehicle. So before getting into the car, set a firm intention, then radiate as well, so that merit protects both us and the vehicle completely.
Why Setting an Intention Works
The principle is that "the mind is an accomplishing element" — whatever you fix your mind on tends to appear. Fix on something good, and good appears; fix on something bad, and bad appears. Setting an intention means directing our wish toward safety — for ourselves and for our belongings. The moment we set that intention, the Triple Gem shines forth within us, and force behind that goodness guides us toward good fortune, safety, and clear-minded wisdom to solve whatever arises along the way.
Even though our old merit already watches over us, we still set intentions because sometimes accumulated merit alone isn't enough — it has to be spent solving many different problems. Setting an intention is like buying insurance: new merit draws in the old merit we've piled up like a mountain, so it can look after us the whole way. When there is no defilement from past unwholesome deeds clouding things over, we can sense danger in advance and be warned in time to stay alert.
Merit as the Energy That Sustains Life
Merit is the energy that powers the wholesome system, the way a phone or an appliance is useless without power. Abiding in the wholesome system rests on two things done together: doing good (practicing the ) and resisting evil (keeping ). Together these draw merit inward. Merit from keeping precepts brings about an unblemished refinement, while merit from practicing the Dhamma brings about an inner goodness — together describing a life that is both good and refined.
Wisdom Must Go Hand in Hand
Doing good and avoiding evil alone is not enough to reach Nibbana — at best it leads only as far as the formless realms. One must also learn and understand deeply enough to step out of system altogether; that is wisdom, or Right View, which Buddhism holds as supremely important. Right View must be complete, one hundred percent, before the unwholesome can no longer dominate or steer us — neither our thoughts nor our feelings.
Liberation requires both "liberation of heart" (through , clearing away defilements) and "liberation through wisdom" (seeing the danger in the unwholesome and the benefit in the wholesome) working together; neither alone is sufficient. Once we see the danger in ordinary human desire, we become free of it and move toward a subtler body; seeing the danger there in turn, we move on again — until the proportion of wholesomeness is complete, and one attains Arahantship.