that say Buddha use 100 kalpas to cultivate merits 福德.
Buddha also did talk about the best way in Generating great
merits in Amitabha Sutra.
Amitabha Buddha knows that other than Transcendent Wisdom, Merit
is also very important in the Mahayana path of Buddhahood, as
without a certain accumulated amount of merit, it's very difficult
to deliver other sentient beings. This is becasue nobody will care
to listen to you if you do not have merit. though this merit is
invisible. hinayana path don't need merit, but Mahayana path
do.
so in order for Amitabha's disciples to generate the greatest
merit in the shortest time, there are two ways. One is practice the
Ten meritorious and the other is Offering the Buddhas (or Triple
Gems).
Moreover, Shariputra, in this
Buddhaland heavenly music always plays, and the ground is made of
gold. In the six periods of the day and night a heavenly rain of
mandarava flowers falls, and throughout the clear morning, each
living being of this land offers sacks filled with myriads of
wonderful flowers to the hundreds of thousands of millions of
Buddhas of the other directions. At mealtime they return to their
own countries and after eating they walk about. Shariputra, the
Land of Utmost Happiness is crowned in splendor and virtues such as
these. --Amitabha Sutra
there's a story about a Wheel-Turning King who wished to collect
the Buddha's relic from King Naga, but his merit was way below Kind
Naga, so even when Asoka went to look for King Naga, King Naga
don't even wish to appear from his naga world.
So the King went to seek help from an Arahat teacher. The
teacher told him that his merit is lower than Naga, but the King
thought that He had almost conquered India and became a
Wheel-Turning King (Cakravartin), how can his merit be lower. the
Arahat told him to do an experiment.
Carve out 2 figures of Him and King Naga with the same amount of
gold and weight them. You'll find that the weight of King Naga
would weight more due to it's merit! So Wheel-Turning King ask how
can he cultivate merit in the shortest time.
Arahat told him that to increase his merit, he need to cultivate
offering to Triple gems. As he cultivate offering, the weight of
his gold figure starts to increase, even though they are of similar
mass. This time when the Wheel-Turning King went to look for Kind
Naga, Kind Naga was already welcoming him and was happy to gave him
the Buddha's relics/sariras!
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Thanks.. interesting. Merits does change a lot of things... it
is in fact affecting our everyday lives in many unknown ways.
