Q39. What sort of goodness has little effect and what sort has great effect?
~ By Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu ~
The Buddha taught, ‘The value of doing good that is self- serving is not worth the sixteenth sixteenth part of the value of cultivating friendliness (mettā).’
The self-serving (opadhika)* kinds of doing good (merit- making) include doing good for the sake of looking good and enhancing one’s reputation, in exchange for paradise or heaven, in order to be reborn beautiful or rich, and to gain sensual pleasure. Such merit-making is opadhika, that is, acquisitive and mixed up with grasping and clinging. Merit- making caught up with grasping and clinging is still doing good, but can’t have the sixteenth sixteenth part of the value of practicing mettā. Friendliness isn’t selfish; it is practiced for the sake of other people. There is universal love for all other people. Goodness born of mettā is great good; merit based on greed doesn’t amount to the sixteenth sixteenth part of that of mettā.
In the Pāli language, when it was desired to indicate a great quantitative difference between things, expressions like ‘the sixteenth part taken sixteen times’ were commonly used. Suppose we have one unit of something. Divide it up into sixteen parts and take one of these. Again, divide that part into sixteen parts and take one of them. Then divide that part yet again into sixteen parts. Again take one and divide it. Carry on like this a total of sixteen times to get the sixteenth sixteenth part.
The self-serving merit-making sort of doing good is described as not worth the sixteenth sixteenth part of the goodness based on friendliness (mettā).
(*) Opadhika, associated with upādāna (clinging) and upadhi (stuff clung to, assets).
(From “Buddha-Dhamma for Inquiring Minds”)
- - ❖ - -
Buddha-Dhamma for Students (title of original translation) was composed of two talks given by Ajahn Buddhadāsa in January 1966 to students at Thammasat University, Bangkok. It was translated from the Thai by Rod Bucknell, and revised in 2018 by Santikaro Upasaka. To read/download as free ebook (pdf).
- - ❖ - -
For all English retreat talks, visit Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu.
For more information and free ebooks, visit Suan Mokkh – The Garden of Liberation.
Photo: Buddhadāsa Indapañño Archives N-183