The Buddha Field: The Chronicles of A Spiritual Adventuress / Vol. 1

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Through these ledgers it was believed someone could offset bad karma. In the fourteenth century CE, the Tao master Zhao Yizhen recommended the use of the ledgers to examine oneself, to bring emotion in harmony with reason. The association of wealth with merits done has deeply affected many Buddhist countries. It is the attachment to wealth that is an obstacle on the spiritual path, not wealth per se.

Stories illustrating these themes in vernacular Buddhist literature, have profoundly influenced popular culture in Buddhist countries. Two practices mentioned in the list of meritorious acts have been studied quite extensively by scholars: Buddhist traditions provide detailed descriptions of how this transfer proceeds.

Transferring merit to another person, usually deceased relatives, is simply done by a mental wish. Despite the word transfer , the merit of the giver is in no way decreased during such an act, just like a candle used to light another candle does not diminish.

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The dead relatives must also be able to sympathize with the meritorious act. If the relatives do not receive the merit, the act of transferring merit will still be beneficial for the giver himself.

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The transfer of merit is thus connected with the idea of rejoicing. Thus, rejoicing in others' merits, apart from being one of the ten meritorious acts mentioned, is also a prerequisite for the transferring of merit to occur. In many Buddhist countries, transferring merit is connected to the notion of an intermediate state.

The merit that is transferred to the deceased will help them to cross over safely to the next rebirth. In this way it is believed their favor can be obtained. For example, Heinz Bechert dated the Buddhist doctrine of transfer of merit in its fully developed form to the period between the fifth and seventh centuries CE. The idea that a certain power could be transferred from one to another was known before the arising of Buddhism.

A similar belief existed with regard to the energy gained by performing austerities Sanskrit: Apart from these transfers of power, a second origin is found in Brahamanical ancestor worship. In Buddhism, however, ancestor worship was discontinued, as it was believed that the dead would not reach heavenly bliss through rituals or worship, but only through the law of karma. Nevertheless, the practice of transfer of merit arose by using the ethical and psychological principles of karma and merit, and connect these with the sense of responsibility towards one's parents.

This sense of responsibility was typical for pre-Buddhist practices of ancestor worship. As for the veneration of dead ancestors, this was replaced by veneration of the Sangha. Sree Padma and Anthony Barber note that merit transfer was well-established and a very integral part of Buddhist practice in the Andhra region of southern India. This concept has led to several Buddhist traditions focused on devotion. Indeed, the transfer of merits has grown that important in Buddhism, that it has become a major way for Buddhism to sustain itself.

In South and South-East Asia, merit-making was not only a practice for the mass, but was also practiced by the higher echelons of society.

Merit (Buddhism) - Wikipedia

Kingship and merit-making went together. Cakravartin , the king who rules righteously and non-violently according to Dharma. The Cakkavatti is a moral example to the people and possesses enough spiritual merit. It is through this that he earns his sovereignty, as opposed to merely inheriting it. The emperor Asoka Sanskrit: Because of these traditions, kings have had an important role in maintaining the Sangha, and publicly performed grand acts of merit, as is testified by epigraphic evidence from South and South-East Asia. In fact, a number of kings in Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Burma have described themselves as Bodhisattas , and epithets and royal language were established accordingly.

Both facilitated one another, and both needed each other. During the reform period of Rama IV, as Thai Buddhism was being modernized , the festival was dismissed as not reflecting true Buddhism. Its popularity has greatly diminished ever since.

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Nevertheless, the use of merit-making by the Thai monarchy and government, to solidify their position and create unity in society, has continued until the late twentieth century. Buddhists are not in agreement with regard to the interpretation, role, and importance of merit. The role of merit-making in Buddhism has been discussed throughout Buddhist history, but much more so in the last centuries.

In the nineteenth century, during the rise of Buddhist modernism and the Communist regimes, Buddhists in South and Southeast Asia became more critical about merit-making when it became associated with magical practices, privileging, ritualism and waste of resources. During the period of religious reform and administrative centralization in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, however, Thai temples were no longer supported in this manner and had to find other ways to maintain themselves. At the beginning of the twentieth century, perspectives of merit-making had changed again, as merit-making was being associated with capitalism and consumerism , which had been rising in South and Southeast Asia.

Cousins has coined the term " ultimatism ". Studies done in the s and s in Thailand, Sri Lanka and Burma showed that a great deal of time, effort and money was invested by people in merit-making, e. Spiro described Burma's rural economy as "geared to the overriding goal of the accumulation of wealth as a means of acquiring merit".

In some studies done in rural Burma, up to thirty percent of people's income was spent on merit-making.

Some scholars have suggested that merit-making may have affected the economies of Buddhist countries in a negative way, because spending savings on the local temple would prevent consumption and investment and therefore stunt economic growth. Other researchers have disagreed, pointing out that spending resources on a Buddhist temple does stimulate economic growth through the investment in goods for the temple. Another criticism often leveled at merit-making in modern times is that it prevents people from using their resources to help the poor and needy.

Very often, however, temples do have many social roles in society, and offer help to many groups in society—resources are therefore redistributed widely. Scholars have often connected the notion of karma to the determinism in the caste system in India. This would be the case when the poor, who cannot make much merit, resign to their fate.

In traditional Buddhist societies, quick changes in position, status, or roles are therefore considered part of life, and this insecurity is a motivator in trying to improve the situation through merit-making. The idea of merit is also at the basis of the Phu Mi Bun movements as has been studied in Thailand and other Buddhist societies. Phu Mi Bun are people who are considered to have much merit from past lives, whose influence morally affects society at large.

Besides the example of the king himself, certain monks and shamans have assumed this role throughout history. In Thailand, around the turn of the twentieth century, a millennialist movement arose regarding the coming of a Phu Mi Bun , to the extent of becoming an insurgency which was suppressed by the government. One merit-making practice that has received more scholarly attention since the s is the practice of "merit release". Merit release is a ritual of releasing animals from captivity, as a way to make merit.

Merit release is a practice common in many Buddhist societies, and has since the s made a comeback in some societies. Studies done in Cambodia, Hong Kong and Taiwan have shown that the practice may not only be fatal for a high percentage of the released animals, but may also affect the survival of threatened species , create a black market for wildlife, as well as pose a threat for public hygiene. According to the SCB, the communities have generally responded positively.

In Singapore, to limit merit release on Vesak celebrations, people were fined. Despite its critics, merit release continues to grow, and has also developed new forms in western countries. The release was planned in agreement with local lobster-men. The costly release, advertised on Facebook as The Great Rabbit Liberation of , was supported by Buddhist monastics from Singapore and the Tibetan tradition, and was based on the idea of merit-making.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For the concept of merit in Hinduism, see Punya Hinduism. Thus the Buddhist's view of his present activities has a wider basis, they being but one group of incidents in an indefinitely prolonged past, present and future series. They are, as has been said, no mere train of witnesses for or against him, but a stage in a cumulative force of tremendous power. He and his works stand in a mutual relation, somewhat like that of child to parent in the case of past works, of parent to child in the case of future works. Now no normal mother is indifferent as to whether or how she is carrying out her creative potency.

Nor can any normal Buddhist not care whether his acts, wrought up hourly in their effect into his present and future character, are making a happy or a miserable successor. And so, without any definite belief as to how, or in what realm of the universe he will re-arise as that successor to his present self, the pious Buddhist, no less than his pious brethren of other creeds, goes on giving money and effort, time and thought to good works, cheerfully believing that nothing of it can possibly forgo its effect, but that it is all a piling up of merit or creative potency, to result, somewhere, somewhere, somehow, in future happiness—happiness which, though he be altruistic the while, is yet more a future asset of his, than of some one in whom he naturally is less interested than in his present self.

He believes that, because of what he is now doing, some one now in process of mental creation by him, and to all intents and purposes his future " self," will one day taste less or more of life's trials. To that embryonic character he is inextricably bound ever making or marring it, and for it he is therefore and thus far responsible. At the same time, Aung San Suu Kyi referred to the struggle for democracy as meritorious. Merit Transfer in the Early Buddhist Tradition". New Encyclopedia of Philosophy in Russian.

Brahmanical Terms in a Buddhist Guise". Retrieved 13 October The Journal of Asian Studies. Archived from the original on 18 October Ramakrishna; Paranjpe, Anand C. Psychology in the Indian Tradition. Translated by Masefield, Peter; Jayawickrama, N. Translated by Bodhi, Bhikkhu. Buddhist Rituals of Death and Rebirth: Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices.

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