Unexpected Freedom

Unexpected FreedomI appreciate how, for many, the concept of ‘merit’ smacksof materialism and is off-putting. However, we cansometimes learn from a material metaphor. For instance, inorder to start a business we have to generate potential to getit up and running. The potential in this case is capital – weneed to have accumulated sufficient savings of our own orhave secured a loan from a bank. This preparation is not thebusiness itself, because we are not yet doing what we have setout to do or realising the result of the business that we wantto run. Yet without the potential that capital stands for, wecan’t run the business – that’s the reality. The same principleholds true spiritually.If out of unawareness we have come to a condition ofselfishness, isolation and loneliness and we wish to see ourcondition transformed, we may wonder where the necessaryforce or energy will come from to effect this transformation.Whether we are lay or monastic Buddhist practitioners, a lotof our practice is concerned with generating theaccumulated momentum required for that transformation.This is one way of understanding puñña.The act of dedicating puñña is aimed at purifying oureffort. Despite doing our best, without our noticing it, therecan be a steadily increasing sense of ourselves as beingsomehow spiritually superior to other people. This sense ofaccumulated benefit can, if we are not careful, increase ourburden of conceit. When we dedicate any puñña that wemay have generated by wholesome conduct we are makingthe gesture of giving it away. We pray, ‘may the goodnessresulting from my practice today, bring benefit to all beings’.When we do this, the focus of our attention is on the heartitself; it is not outwardly directed, concerned with whateffect this gesture might have on the ‘world’.The Buddha told this story: There were two acrobats who136