[conduct] [practice] "Merit-making" as everyday off-cushion practice

This is a post about practice, but not about meditation per se. It's about the way we approach practice in the first place, before beginning a seated session. I'd love to talk about how life and practice support each other, how I have found an attitude of "making merit" very helpful, and to hear from you all about your experiences with this approach.

__What merit is:__

Buddhism, especially the Mahayana varieties, uses the concept of "merit" to talk about the butterfly effects of positive actions, especially with respect to how that affects our momentum toward awakening. It can be thought of as karma management. Merit is the awakening-supporting power of a given action and its results.

For example, something as simple as washing your hands can have profound effects going forward. Maybe there was a pathogen on your hands, and if you hadn't washed them you would have gotten sick for the next three weeks, and your sickness would have been a hindrance to your practice. By simply washing your hands for 30 seconds, you may have just avoided three weeks of illness, and helped your practice by doing so.

Therefore, something as mundane as washing our hands can be a meritorious action, because it sets causes in motion for powerful positive consequences in the future; in this case, health. If we choose to recognize this and dedicate that merit toward awakening by forming the intention, "may any future benefits resulting from this action support my path toward awakening [in order to benefit all beings, if that's your style]," we have now turned that simple action into a practice!

__How it's been helpful:__

Taking the attitude of making merit has been helpful for me in three main ways - it turns life into practice, it naturally transforms and reduces self-ing, and it fosters positive mental states like gratitude and confidence.

It turns life into practice by making practice accessible at any moment. Even if I am at my day job and not in super-turbo-jhana-12-subjhana-3-and-a-half, I can actively create conditions conducive to awakening by simply doing something helpful and dedicating the merit. Even if I am not always meditating, I can always practice.

It transforms and reduces self-ing by encouraging me to think of my actions in terms of their awakening-supporting power rather than just their immediate sensual gratification. Thus, taking a walk is not only a nice thing to do because I want to, but can be a source of merit; perhaps an opportunity to practice metta for the people and animals I see, or to calm the mind and make it more workable in the process. The "goodness" and "badness" of various experiences becomes less about their ability to gratify my immediate desires and more about their participation in a sea of interwoven conditions that can bring real benefit without the hard distinction of self vs other.

Finally, by doing the previous two things, it fosters positive mental states. For instance, by turning life into a continually-unfolding opportunity for practice, it helps develop equanimity toward whatever occurs, as the opportunity for benefit is always potentially there. By bringing to mind the benefits of even mundane actions, it helps develop gratitude for the good conditions that support me, and confidence that I have that "momentum" behind me. By transforming self-grasping, it makes selfless states of mind like the brahmaviharas easier and more natural to inhabit.

__Merit and you:__

Do you incorporate "merit-making" into your practice? What have been your observations? If you haven't so far, would you be willing to give it a try? What's it like?

Thanks for reading!