style="font-size:15px;"> 6 Ease along the Buddha Dhamma Path7 Being born in beautiful environments
8 Born with good skin, hair and beautiful to look at
9 Always having a sweet-smelling body
10 Pleasant relationships with friends
It is easy to give such things as food and flowers to our parents and the merit of these type gifts are very important to our human life.
And for food offerings the Bohjana Sutta says as follows:
“In giving a meal, the donor gives five things to the recipient. Which five? He or she gives life, beauty, happiness, strength, and quick-wittedness.” 5.
As a result, the giver of the food has made the kamma to receive those five things back. Every day of our life we are using up our health, strength, long-life, beauty and alertness. We need to make many such food offerings to maintain our kammic stores of these things our lives really depend on.
In terms of human history, we live in exceptional times. The living conditions of the majority of persons living in many modern societies today are superior in many ways to that experienced by kings and queens in past times.
Many citizens living in wealthy Western societies have large stores of good kamma from our past to enable us to live in such good conditions. However, we are at the same time consuming a lot of our good kamma or merit just to live our daily lives. We are very high merit consumers. This is a characteristic of our modern world, we consume a lot of resources to function effectively in our society.
Our life already has enormous opportunities to give to others regularly. When we have the right attitude to the countless generous actions we are already doing in our life, these actions will be transformed into much stronger causes for our happiness and well-being. Turn the mundane, common place things you do many times every day into the exact things you need to increase your happiness and well-being.
It's a matter of remembering to not see your life as just getting things done. Recognise that many of the things you are getting done are your acts of generosity to others. Change from looking at your life in the old habitual way of living.
When you turn on the heater or air conditioner offer the comfort or warmth to warm others when they are cold, cool air to cool others when they are hot.
When you pay the gas bill, electricity bill, the water bill, etc., offer the water you are paying for with the intention to increase the long life, strength, health, cleanliness, beauty, and alertness of the others in your home. That is what they actually receive from the water you are providing.
When you put flowers on the table offer them to everybody for their enjoyment and pleasure.
When you clean, offer the clean environment you have created to others so that they always have good clean places to live in.
When paying tax, offer the tax you earned from your efforts to all persons living in your country. Recollect all the things that tax money goes toward such as education and education resources, health care and medicines, roads, transportation systems, law and order, peaceful government, our welfare systems, pensions, and so on. Having recollected those things, offer them in your mind to all the persons living in your society.
In the Dhammapada, the Buddha taught:
'Should a person perform good, He should do it again and again; He should find pleasure therein; For blissful is the accumulation of good.' 'Think not lightly of good, saying, 'It will not come near to me' - Even by the falling of drops a water-jar is filled. Likewise the wise man, gathering little by little, Fills himself with good.' 6.
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