An absolutely true Valentine's Day story of Merit Making

[grantcart]

5. making merit is widely misunderstood

You do not make merit for yourself. When you go to feed the monks you are making merit in the memory of someone you want the merit to pass to.

and there is. of course, a direct line between the two events, ala Jung synchronicity.

It is like the primitive man looking at the pattern of the stars and noticing the begining of the new season and then assuming the stars cause the change of the seasons rather than seeing that they are related because they are separate results from the independent causation of the earth rotating around the sun.

In this case letting go of a personal point of view and living in the moment I saw the fish that no one else saw and the only clear action that would save the fish. I was liberated from seeking approbation or worried about the hilarity of a face plant into the mud (the most likely outcome of a fat guy walking on a slippery surface) and was freed to look at the fish.

I go into a lot of federal buildings in order to sell supplemental benefits to federal employees. There are a couple of hundred of us across the country that do this kind of work on a daily basis. Several years ago being in the moment allowed me to notice and talk to the private guards that stop and check people in and out of the buildings. They are largely invisible to most people.

I was the only one at the park that saw the fish and then only one not worried about public opinion to take action.

I was the only one that goes in and out of federal buildings that noticed the 'lowly guards'. Turns out that the government has increased their role in detention facillities and there are thousands of them, and we have better benefit options than they currently do.

Somehow I got the fish to trust me and swim towards me (the swarming birds that were picking on them helped provide an immediate incentive) and listening and talking to the local unions for the guards and treating them with the same respect as the people inside the building gave us a big advantage.

So they were different legs of the same 'living in the moment' and only the fact that they came to fruition on the same day was a coincidence.