Merit

Years ago I met a friend. She was from Yi Guan Dao (一贯道). She got my family and I into her group. I protested on the fact that I became a member not in my own will. She said the more people she could get them the more merits she would get. I told her then she has no merit because we got in not by our own wish. Why people look at their merits like their bank account balance? Why people do ‘good’ for the purpose of building up their merits? I can not understand this. Offer a glass of water to a monk will get merit; Get people into taking Triple Gems will get merit; chanting the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva sutra in the seven month of the lunar calendar will get merit; become a vegetarian will get merit, etc. There are all sorts of merits we can collect like gold coins in any of the online games. Why on earth a Buddhist become like this? This is because we lack of understanding the true meaning of Buddhism. People like my mother will tell you, she is a Buddhist but please don’t ask her what are Buddha’s teachings. She goes to the temple to make merit – burn incenses, prostrate to Buddha and donate money. She chants every morning. She believes the more she chants the more merits she will get. I also couldn’t understand why people have to count how many times they recite Buddha’s name per day. There are retreats that encourage people to count how many times a person prostrate to Buddha, how many times a person recite Buddha’s name per day and at the end you will get a prize. I thought we practice to attain our inner peace, but instead we get into this competition game of how many times you can chant/recite/prostrate. I wonder how a person can calm his /her monkey mind by clicking the counting machine to count each reciting of a Buddha’s name.