Merit is an important Teaching to understand as it relates to The Path to Enlightenment. Merit is thought of as a unique type of Kamma. Merit is wholesome Kamma generated through generous offerings and gifts to The Community of virtuous Ordained Practitioners and anyone who has attained one of The Four Stages of Enlightenment. This community of people is referred to as the “Ariyan Sangha”. Sangha is the Pāli word for “community”. The “Ariyan Sangha” is translated as “The Noble Community”.

Merit is generated by making offerings of food, water, clothing, shelter, medical care, time, effort, energy, financial support, and resources, to support the sharing of Gotama Buddha’s Teachings. It is The Noble Community who are responsible for guiding others to attain Enlightenment. Ordained Practitioners and anyone who has attained one of The Four Stages of Enlightenment are considered deep Students and Practitioners of these Teachings who support all others by guiding them towards attaining Enlightenment.

If you make offerings to these people, you are supporting the continuation of The Teachings that will help end discontentedness and the suffering it causes to all of humanity. To make offerings to The Noble Community, virtuous Ordained Practitioners, and any person who has attained one of The Four Stages of Enlightenment, you are recognizing the importance of The Teachings and supporting their continued growth. This is considered a unique type of wholesome Kamma called “Merit”.

Sharing The Teachings of Gotama Buddha requires an enormous amount of time, effort, energy, and resources. Wherever you learn these Teachings, these people need to use time and money to support their ongoing efforts to share The Teachings with you. The vast majority of people who share these Teachings with loving-kindness and compassion would never ask for a payment for sharing The Teachings but instead, offer them to you on a donation basis. The Teachings are essentially shared at no cost, for free, but those who are sharing The Teachings are spending their time, effort, energy, and resources to do the work to share with you.

Those who share The Teachings in this way are doing so with generosity, loving-kindness, and compassion for all beings. It is important that you do not just “take” this generosity, loving-kindness, and compassion, but that you also “return it back” to those who are using their time, effort, energy, and resources to help you. You should also help them. As people are sharing with you, you can share with them. And, you can also initiate sharing on your own without any expectation of obtaining something in return. The practice of generosity and sharing is a powerful way to help cultivate a mind free of greed or craving.

Without sharing and practicing generosity to create Merit, a person would be unable to attain Enlightenment as the mind would still be holding on and would not have eliminated craving. It is through making offerings to the Teachers of these Teachings that one is acknowledging, with appreciation and gratitude, that The Teachings have helped them in their life, and they are making offerings to help the Teacher help others.

It is only through the generosity of people before you that The Teachings have been preserved and shared worldwide to finally reach you. The people before you have already made donations of time, effort, energy, and resources to help these Teachings reach you.

Now, instead of just “taking The Teachings” to benefit your life, you can also help those yet to come behind you by “practicing generosity and giving” to benefit those in the future.

Your offering that produces Merit helps those who share these Teachings with you. And you are helping those people after you who will learn and progress with these Teachings in the generations yet to come.