Deeper Explanation of Accumulation of Merit
by Khenpo Tashi
We have already introduced Merit in “The Basics of Merit” article. Merit brings us towards the Buddha’s wisdom.
Ordinary Positive Karma
For many people, just accumulating positive Karma may be enough. Positive Karma equates to our happiness and the lessening of suffering in the worldly situation. For instance, Mipham Rinpoche writes in the Gateway to Knowledge. There are seven signs of high human rebirth:
- long life
- good health
- beautiful physical form
- good fortune*
- birth in a respected family
- wealth
- high intellect
These are all the results of great amounts of positive Karma. However, these are not perfect. Good health, physical form, and long life, will all decay and end. High Intellect can make us feel arrogant and proud.
When one’s positive Karma is finished, one will become poor again. For instance, when something bad happens, like too much hunger, this poor person can do a negative deed, like stealing, to eat. That seed of stealing will cause negative result for that person in the next lives.
So, we can be rich, but it is unstable. We may become poor again, which will push us to do a cycle of negative actions again.
So, just aiming for a lot of ordinary positive Karma is not stable, always changing, sometimes up, sometimes down. One remains within the cycle of Samsara.
The Stained and Stainless
What is the difference between ordinary positive Karma and merit? Ordinarily, we mix them up together. But merit, or extraordinary positive Karma, are virtues that are dedicated to attaining enlightenment.
How are they different? It is about being “stained” and “stainless”. Stained (Tibetan: zag che) positive Karma is linked to Samsara. This is what we call “ordinary positive Karma”. It is still entangled in Samsaric tendencies. That is why this positive Karma can be finished, unstable.
The other one, Stain-less (zag me), is without any trace of Samsara. That kind of positive Karma is what we can call “merit”.
This is already deep Buddhist reasoning. But it is good to know such difference.
Four Levels of Negative Karma
Normally, we say that there are four levels of Negative Karma, from the roughest to the subtlest. Why negative? because they will bring pain or suffering, and they prevent us from achieving pure peace – Enlightenment.
That is a rough explanation.
These four types of Negative Karma are:
- Ordinary negative Karma
- Emotional Obscurations
- Conceptual Obscurations
- Very fine Habitual Tendencies
Merit is the specific antidote for second one, the Emotional Obscurations, but it is also the stepping stone to remove conceptual obscurations and habitual tendencies.
See the next article about the Four Types of Negative Karma and Merit accumulation, and the ways to earn merit!
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*Good Fortune (worldly Good Fortune – able to feel compassion, able to achieve great worldly things; non-worldly Good Fortune – ease of meeting spiritual masters and ease of practicing the Buddha’s teachings)