What is the meaning of all this lavishing on the monks of food daily, and various offerings, including almost everything except money, which they are under vows not to touch? Answer, koothoh. So with all alms and offerings to monks, to the poor, to dogs, or crows; so with good works of every imaginable description. You may acquire merit by conforming to the ceremonies, by attending the festivals, by listening to the reading of the Law, by striking the pagoda bells, by buying and lighting pagoda tapers, by plastering gold leaf on the pagoda, by contributing to the repairs of the sacred edifices, by showing lights at the festival of lighting in October, and by many, many ways. As might be expected, when the acquiring of merit is so important a matter, there are many avenues opened to it.
Though of course you have not kept all the laws, yet if you have gone out of your way a little to do something more than keep one of them it gives you merit. The care for animal life offers great scope in that direction. An English soldier whilst fishing caught a tortoise and was taking it home, when a Burman met him, bought the tortoise for a rupee, and took it back to its native element. He would expect to gain merit by that. Men have been known to make a regular trade of snaring little birds in the jungle, and bringing them to the bazaar to sell to the merit seekers, who buy them merely to set them free.
Many works of merit involve great expense, such as the digging of a well, the erection of a bridge, a zayat or rest-house, a monastery, a pagoda. Judging by the enormous number of these sacred buildings in Upper Burma, it would appear that this is a favourite way of seeking merit. The builder of a pagoda is honoured with a special title attached to his name, and he is understood to be in a fair way for Nirvana. This seeking after merit is practically the most predominant aim in Burmese religious life.
So fixed is this belief in merit, that when the Burmans see the English so intent upon opening up the country, making roads and railways, metalling streets and lighting them, building hospitals and markets, constructing irrigation works, and carrying out a multitude of other necessary and useful efforts of public utility, they measure us by their own bushel, and remark that there will be great merit to the Government and its officers by means of these things. What other motive could men have for taking so much pains and trouble for the public good, if not to accumulate merit?
In elaborating this law relating to merit, Gautama was preparing the sheet anchor of his system. It is that mainly by which it abides, and retains its influence over its millions of followers until this day.
“IN THE MORNING THE MONKS INVARIABLY GO FORTH CARRYING THE ALMS-BOWLS TO COLLECT THEIR DAILY FOOD FROM THE PEOPLE.”
Every false religion, however, whatever master mind designed it, must show, somewhere or other, its weak places. It is manifestly a weak place in Buddhism that alms and works of merit may so easily outweigh whatever demerit may attach through real crimes and sins, and that, too, without any repentance or reformation on the part of the offender. This also makes the attainment of merit largely dependent on the pecuniary means and influence at the disposal of the individual. A work may be very easy for a king or a rich man which would be utterly impossible for a poor man. To the Christian mind this seems very unequal and unfair, but to the Burman it presents no stumbling-block. Supposing we do see great inequalities in money, or any other temporal advantages that men possess. Be it so. It arises from differences in their Kan, and that depends on what took place in previous births. One’s Kan is not a thing to rail against, but to submit to.