How To Get Unstuck: Accumulating Merit
Today I want to explore a feature of the Buddhist path that falls into the category of accumulation of merit—a practice that can help us move through stagnation and obstacles in our spiritual development.
While accumulating merit is very practical from a Buddhist perspective, I should mention that this topic ventures a bit more into the religious aspects of Buddhism. If that's not your thing, no worries—you don't have to continue. But if you're open to it, or if you're new to Buddhism and curious about what this is all about, I invite you to stay and explore this with me.
This is quite a big topic. Accumulation of merit doesn't just fall into the category of what to do when we're stuck—it's a major feature of the path itself. It's something that's actively encouraged, and many of the practices we do revolve around this concept. Before we dive in, I should note that "merit" isn't a perfect English word for what we're discussing, but translators haven't found a better alternative. Instead, what we typically do is unpack the meaning and describe it. Since this is such a large category, I won't be able to cover all types of merit accumulation here. I'll focus on the general idea and offer you a few practices to work with.
What Is Merit?
Merit is a virtuous action taken with the motivation to be awake. At minimum, the motivation is to awaken oneself, but ideally within the Mahayana tradition, the motivation is to awaken and become free in order to help free all beings. There's an altruism that we reflect on, which we call relative bodhicitta, and we actively cultivate it. That cultivation itself is a practice that accumulates merit, but it also frames our intention so that a positive action becomes merit.
We often distinguish between positive karma—or beneficial karma—and merit. Merit falls more into the category of recognizing the nature of mind or the non-dual wisdom nature of reality. When we engage in a beneficial or positive action for ourselves or others with an intention of bodhicitta, that's more complete. It's held within an experience of non-duality as well. That's the ideal. But honestly, I'm guessing for most of us—myself included—that's not really where we're at right now. I want to be upfront about that. This would be the ideal of how something actually becomes genuine merit.
That said, if we generate relative bodhicitta and engage in practice, study of Dharma, or a compassionate or loving action (however small or large), the result has the potential to bring us to awakening. That's essentially what merit is—the potential to bring us to awakening and then, once we become enlightened, it becomes the power and enlightened energy that benefits others. This merit builds up over time. When someone attains Buddhahood, they possess this wealth of spiritual energy, power, and efficacy to help and benefit others and assist in freeing them. That's why the motivation of bodhicitta is so essential here. But also, as I mentioned, developing bodhicitta and motivating with it accumulates merit in itself.
How Merit Helps Us
Another way to understand this is that merit helps us cut through our fixations. The more we accumulate merit on the path, the better we're able to remove the fixations that keep us stagnant or locked in ego clinging. These fixations trap us in doubt and prevent us from progressing or gaining experience.
Merit can also help transform our negative habits into positive ones. Of course, we can work directly on transforming our habits, but the more spiritual merit we accumulate through practice, the easier that transformation becomes. It simply makes it easier to shift habit patterns from negative to positive.
Let me give you an example. Some of you may relate to this; others may not. For those who have been on pilgrimage to sacred Buddhist sites or other holy places, or who have attended a sangha gathering with an accomplished teacher—where you're practicing, receiving teachings, and conducting beneficial rituals with bodhicitta motivation—it's as if all that merit gets multiplied by the number of people present, and you can feel it.
When you walk away from these experiences—whether they're large prayer ceremonies, pujas, or just teaching gatherings lasting a week or two—I know that for me, often when I return home, the patterns that bind me to suffering and lead me to be unskillful with others lessen. The patterns associated with compassion, love, and discernment receive a boost. They're more present. And then, of course, that fades over time.
I think that's also a result of merit accumulation. Sometimes I wonder why people follow certain teachers around the world constantly. Nothing wrong with that—they're practicing and they're with that teacher, which can be wonderful. But I've also reflected, through my own experience, that it feels good to be around realized people. There's a benefit from that. We're connecting into their merit. We're surrounded by a field of merit that they're constantly accumulating and sharing to benefit others. So I think that's one reason we enjoy being around people who have good vibes—or, in Buddhist terms, realized or enlightened beings.
Even in teachings with the Dalai Lama, I've noticed people's emotions open up very easily. It's easy to cry around such teachers, but not a sad cry—a cry of joy, of experiencing something previously unknown. This can happen when we're around beings with abundant merit because it's also awakening our own merit. There are many ways to think about this, but my point is that when we're engaging in the accumulation of merit or when it's happening around us, it uplifts our mind. We can see it becomes easier to change negative patterns or habits into positive ones.
Another major reason for accumulating merit is to obtain good circumstances—fortunate conditions for practice. Whether short-term or long-term, we need favorable circumstances in life if we want to develop more compassion and wisdom. The accumulation of merit helps us along the path.
Beyond all this, one of my teachers put it this way: merit is natural to our Buddha nature. It's natural to our awakened nature. We're not acquiring something external—we're allowing our Buddha nature to emerge more fully. Naturally, there's merit within our innate awakened nature in all beings. When we accumulate it and cultivate it, it has the appearance of becoming larger and more radiant. Either way, it's recommended by virtually all lineage masters and teachers of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism to spend considerable time accumulating merit.
Practices for Accumulating Merit
As I mentioned, the primary way we accumulate merit is through the intention to be awake and to help awaken all beings. When we engage in something with that intention—an act of generosity, an act of kindness, an act of patience—that in itself accumulates merit.
For many of us, this looks like trying to embody bodhicitta as best we can, or at least reflecting on it, and then moving through our day with loving acts and acts of care toward others. Again, it doesn't have to be a huge gesture, though if you want to do something significant, that's wonderful. But even the simple act of giving someone a piece of bread or sharing your bread with a loved one with a mind of bodhicitta accumulates vast amounts of merit.
We can get stuck thinking, "One day I'm going to do something massive, some saintly activity." But actually, I think the saintly activities are in the day-to-day moments. They're in the everyday acts we perform. That's what's so beautiful here. We can use every part of our life to accumulate merit if we're embodying bodhicitta when we engage in that act. We embody bodhicitta. We intend to perform the act—of speech, body, or mind—with the motivation of bodhicitta, to be awake for the benefit of all beings. That's one approach I'd call the unofficial way, in the sense that it's part of everyday life.
But of course, there are direct spiritual practices in Tibetan Buddhism specifically for accumulating merit. One of the most widespread is called a mandala offering, where we use a certain physical object of offering. The most direct way involves a mandala plate, where we heap up offerings of grain and jewels to represent the universe, and we offer this to all Buddhas and all beings. There's a liturgy for that, and practices you can study to help with that imaginative process. Traditionally, we would accumulate something like 100,000 mandala offerings, or if we can't do that, as many as we can. This is a creation stage practice of imagination that we merge with the motivation of bodhicitta and with offering and generosity.
What makes mandala practice so precious is that it also cuts through the ego's need to appear useful. I'm not saying you shouldn't be useful—I'm just saying mandala is precious because you're alone in a room doing this practice and you're not receiving accolades from anyone. You're not necessarily looking like a saintly person. I think mandala has huge benefits in that direction as well.
That practice is excellent, and you can study it if you're interested. It's generally found in the preliminary or ngöndro practices of Vajrayana Buddhism, but there are various types of mandalas you can explore. The core practice involves imagining the universe in the most pure and beautiful way you can conceive it and offering it to all Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and all beings in all realms, again and again. It's also a deep surrender where we're letting go and releasing. I think that's why it really helps move through stagnation in our practice and life—because we're releasing with each mandala offering.
Besides mandala practice, there are other methods like prostrations, where we perform bowing activities. Offering incense is another option. Really, any kind of offering practice works. Many traditional Tibetan Buddhists offer water bowls on their shrine daily. Water is something most of us have readily available, and it's easy to offer. We imagine it in a pure way when we offer it. We can transform it through visualization, and this becomes another way to accumulate merit.
I personally like offering incense every morning—imagining clouds of incense. That's another way to accumulate merit. As you can see, there are numerous traditional practices available. I'm just highlighting a few. But it all comes back to the mind. What's your intention? Why are you doing it? It has to return to bodhicitta. Do you wish to attain awakening for the benefit of all beings, to free all beings? And I'm not assuming you know what that is—that needs to be studied and practiced in its own right. That's a whole area you can explore.
Closing Thoughts
Mainly, I wanted to focus on what we mean by accumulation of merit. With that said, I think I'll end here. I didn't want to create an exhaustive guide—I just wanted to point you in a direction as another way to get unstuck, especially for those practicing the Buddhist path. Just work with it a little bit.
The beauty of merit accumulation is you don't have to fully understand it for it to help. I simply recommend: just try it. Generate bodhicitta and then act. Do something beneficial or positive for yourself or another. Do some mandala offerings. Make a beautiful flower offering to the Buddhas or a beautiful incense offering and dedicate that to all sentient beings. Imagine it.
Much of the time in Buddhist practice, we're working on the level of imagination and, to some extent, privately. I think there's value in that. Many people might question it and say, "Well, that's not very useful. It doesn't help anyone." But it helps a lot of people if you get enlightened. I'll just put it that way. This is something we need to consider thoughtfully. It's not immediately obvious, I know.
But of course, if you're more the type of person who wants to see direct benefit, great. Generate bodhicitta, go give money to someone in need, go give food, go do an activity that benefits your community. It can be things like that too. That's perfectly fine.
The path offers many approaches—find what resonates with you and practice.
