Boosting Your Morale
October 06, 2015

All forms of making merit are food for the mind. They give energy to the mind, so that at times when your energy is down, when your morale is down, you can think about the goodness you’ve done. You can remember that you’re in this world, and you haven’t been just a dead weight on the world. You’ve actually contributed to the well-being of the world. You’ve seen opportunities where other people need something that you can share, and you’re happy to share it. That’s goodness right there. That’s nourishment for the mind.

You see opportunities where you could do something where you might gain a bit of benefit by harming someone else or yourself and you say, “Nope. I’m not going to do that.” The knowledge that you have principles like that is nourishing for the mind.

There are times when you meditate and it’s hard to stay with the breath. You can think about the generosity you’ve practiced in the past, the virtue you’ve practiced in the past. And that gives you the energy you need to go back and do battle with your defilements.

The defilements that tell you that “You’re a bad meditator.” The defilements that tell you, “You have no hope.” You can tell yourself, “Well, I do have some goodness.” And this goodness is the basis for training the mind, “So I’ve got something here to work with.” That can give you encouragement.

So all forms of goodness help one another, strengthen one another. It’s not the case that making merit is just for happiness in a future lifetime. It’s also for giving strength to the mind right now. so that you can train the mind, you can go beyond issues of worrying about the next lifetime because you know what you’ve got right now: The mind is in good shape, the mind is well-trained, the mind is more and more under your control.

It’s a mind you can trust. So no matter where you go, you’ve got your trustworthy mind with you.

That’s the kind of strength we’re trying to develop.