#platform/youtube #channel/Master-YongHua #playlist/dharma-glimpses  In Buddhism, you learn to acrue blessings and wisdom. How do you acrew blessings? the Buddhists are taught you're supposed to create merit and virtue. That's how you generate blessings and wisdom. And so merit is that when you do something that benefits others. Okay? You do something the spirit with a public spirit meaning you want to benefit others instead of just benefiting yourself like ordinary people do. Ordinary people put themselves before everyone else. In Buddhism you create merit by putting everyone before you. So you benefit others and by benefiting benefiting others before benefiting yourself that's how you create merit in Buddhism merit is very very clear where I come from I'm teaching you about merit is that it's not enough let me clarify for you the Buddhists you are taught to create merit by doing gungli you benefit the public why I'm teaching you is slightly different I expect so much better from you. Why I pick you is that when you do when you're public spirited, it means that there's a there's a sense there where you benefit others and quite often at your own expenses. That's that kind of mindset. Contrary to ordinary people, especially westerners, western education, they only think of me, me and me. That's the only thing that matters. and it's that's a lack of wisdom right there because if the only thing you do is to plot for yourself and grasp for yourself and grab for yourself, all you're doing is what? Exhausting your blessings. This is why people in the world are so confused. They have no ideas that they thought that you know if I calculate I figure out how to to to benefit myself and who gives a damn but others okay they don't realize they simply are little girl exhausting their blessings. So all the blessings your mom gave you is gone if you keep on using it. Is that clear? Whereas if you simply have the spirit of doing the same thing. Okay. When your mind says that I'm doing this because I want to benefit others even at times at my own expenses. Okay. Then you're creating blessings a lot more blessings than you imagine. Difference very important distinction here. We taught by our our education that we benefit ourselves. Who else going to take care of us? We don't grab it. someone else will. That is exhausting using up your blessings. That's what you're doing. You don't realize that if you really have wisdom, you don't realize that you're able to do that because you have blessings. That's why you're able to make money and make a profit and grab things, steal things because it's your blessings maturing. It's your own wealth that's being transformed. Okay? Your blessing being transformed into a car, into some jewelry, you're stealing some watches, you're stealing some money, you're stealing from your employer, that's all you're doing. Wake up. Whereas if you work, go to work and there is a contract there with your company with your boss. says you do the work for me, I pay you. Okay, that's part of your blessings. Okay, it matures because your blessing maturing. Therefore, money comes in. It has to come from somewhere. It's not going to come from thin air. Your money doesn't come from thin air. They come from your own blessings that being translated into money. So far so good. So that's why with when you have a job, you're supposed to do your job because there's a contractual agreement between you and the company. That's fine. You have to use up your blessing somehow. All right? But if that's all you have at work, you say, "I'm going to I'm going to squeeze as much money out of my company as possible." It's nothing wrong with it, but you simply are continuing to exhaust your blessings. Whereas if you come to work and you say yeah I'm supposed to do this but you do the extra let me help I go beyond my job description that I agreed with my company that's helping others and that's the kind of mindset okay then you creating blessings for yourself so you should have a balance you cannot simply go to work and and and and keep on taking money and taking money getting paid and not think about replenishing your blessings. And this is what ordinary people fail to understand. Yes, if you're a cop, you know, you know, you were supposed to run patrols and so forth, but it's not uncommon for a policeman and said, you know, I need to do this because even though my shift is up, but I need to take care of this person. That's your blessing right there. We have the chance to exhaust our blessings, make our blessings mature in form of salary, in ter forms of benefits and so forth. That's that's normal. But it's the extra that you give beyond yourself that's what replenishes your blessings. So the Buddhists are taught that we taught that merit when I told you about going to work at work and you do more than you're supposed to more than you asked. That's what is called merit in Buddhism because in that spirit there he say I don't have to do this but I want to do it because it's the right thing for me to do. I feel better by myself. And so that's a Buddhist spirit right there. The spirit of merit meaning that we help we do something that puts others interests before ours. Yes, I put in yes I am supposed I'm supposed to clock out but let me give it a few more minutes, five more minutes, 10 more minutes of my time. No one needs to know because this person needs my help because my boss has been kind to me so he deserves this from me. That's merit right there. And you see the spirit there. It's not about onetoone. It's a gift. You give and this person, okay, you want to benefit this person, you don't think about yourself. That's the kind of merit spirit that we're talking about in Buddhism. Very important distinction. And that's what by the way this is what we thrive on. We have so many of you coming and with with that kind of spirit I want to help. I want to help. And you do stupid things. Okay. Even if you do stupid things you are creating so much merit because of your intentions are that you put others interest before you. That's merit. The merit we're talking about the spirit of merit in your daily life that's not taught to you by your professors by your parents is not explained to you that clearly because a little bit there of the generosity you have in your heart will help you acrue blessings that you all capable of doing that's what you're doing anyway without being asked and my point is that I know you've been doing every one of us is capable of doing it because of the goodness in our heart. We all have that. But you should do it more often. Then you create more merit for yourself. When you do that, you're acrewing blessings. With those blessings, that's when you're able to encounter something called a fori because without blessings, you cannot encounter. Trust me. the old monk at DT he says how many people in California 10 million people in California how many people are here reciting Buddha's name you reciting a Buddhist name you create so many blessings for yourself incredible amount of blessings and the fact you here there's a a price of entry did you know that unless you have a lot of blessings you cannot come here it's nothing we can do and if You don't have a blessings. You cannot come. If you come, you don't have enough blessing to stay. You leave. You get afflicted and you leave. Someone look, what are you doing here? You know why are you so rude to me? I don't need you. Leave. Okay. So, that's what happens. It's a two-step process. You need to have blessings first. And because your blessings naturally you don't you don't need necessarily have to go to the temple because most of you don't go to temples. Most of you are capable of helping your neighbors, helping your brothers, helping your mother, helping helping a total stranger. That's how you acrewue blessings because it's that spirit folks that you are willing to help others that creates the kind of blessings of helping others for the sake of helping others. No other reason that special kind of blessings is what you need to come here. But if you have blessings where you say let me help you make more money that helps. That's not a kind of blessing will allow you to come here because the people here look around you. The people who stand up here, who sit over there and who's cooking over there, who's cleaning around and you know and taking care of the yard and so forth, they do it with the spirit of helping only. And that's the price of admission, folks. It's beyond me. It's nothing I can do. If you don't have those blessings, you cannot come in. You don't have those blessing enough blessings you come in you have to leave okay so the kind of blessings that's required that you need to have this is again is beyond us is nothing I can do unless you have those blessing yourself by helping your church by helping your synagogue by helping the homeless by helping you know the you know when you don't have to that's what brings you here and once you enter here that's why we teach you we help you create a different kind kind of blessings far superior kind of blessings which is called reciting the Buddha's name this is incredible blessings that You cannot otherwise generate yourself without our help so that's why it takes blessings to you that could come in okay special kind of blessings and this is why even people who are who have a lot of blessings if the wrong kind of blessings they still cannot come in okay and Then once you come in then you generate a lot more blessings and so that's why you have blessing to enter another temple the other temple and so forth that's your that's your own blessings but if you can you look at yourself can how often you go back to that and when you go there what kind of blessings are you generating once you're there because if you come in but you fail to generate enough blessings you cannot stay you have to leave and that's nothing we can do. So the dharma is to designed to help you create blessings for you to continue to cultivate and cultivate. The more you cultivate the more blessings are required for you to continue to make progress. If you don't have enough blessings, okay, for you to improve, then you stay put. To a meto To a me to aful