Making Merit(Tum Boon)

Buddhists in Thailand in my point of view seems to be influenced by other religions for such a long period of time such as Hindu and others. Thus, we somewhat have been doing a lot of ritual things instead of learning or finding what the core of Buddhism actually is about. Superstitious is also one of what became part of the Thai culture. Obviously, we do believed that Money can buy heaven where we would go or end up there after death such as donating a lot of money to the temple. Making merit should not be somewhat expecting to get anything back from giving but, but leaving the selfish mind. If one is hoping of getting, dreaming to live in a big castle or house after death that means you are building up greed( lope). You are going to opposite direction from what Buddha had tought.

 According to Tan Buddhsada Bhikkhu's teaching, making merit actually is when we work hard in term of practicing Buddhism all the way until  one attains enlightenment or the other words he or she can finally get rid of the Ego permanently. Speaking of practicing Buddhism meaning that we have to maintain consciousness or Sati as much as we can or as often as we can. That result will come from doing and practicing chanting, and meditation (samadi, Vipassana) . In everyday life we will always deal with pair things such as love-hate, sweet- tart or head-tail, beautiful-ugly and etc. These will not end. We are endless people and this world is not a perfect world ,of course.The bottom line is these are the same coin, beautiful things can turn ugly in seconds. "All things change", Buddha said. Whatever is born, is subject to decay, that is from Buddha 's own word. Isn't he right?

In summary, a real making merit is when one can completely get rid of the self ( me or I). You have to reach enlightenment or become egoless. Regarding having no ego means you are harmless to anyone; you will not hurt anyone even one second because you know what you doing. You are fill with tremendously consciousness. You will find a huge energy that you suppose to experience in this life time. No more worry about the past nor future, the mind will be extremely stable. You are not only finally find the inner peace in yourself but also can be able to love others like you will never imagine that you can be that good. This is a real making merit.