The Essence of Merits in The Heightened Mind: Dhamma Talks of Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo, translated by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu.

The Essence of Merits in The Heightened Mind: Dhamma Talks of Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo, translated by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu.

The intention to do good—the first stage in your goodness—is the essence of merit. It’s like planting a tree. 

When you give a donation, it’s like putting fertilizer around the tree. 

When you observe the precepts, it’s like picking away the worms and caterpillars that will eat the flowers or leaves. 

As for meditating, that’s like watering the tree with clean, clear, cool water. 

In this way, your tree is sure to keep growing until it produces leaves and fruit that you can eat for your enjoyment in line with your original aim...

But if your heart is in a sour mood, then you won’t get much fruit from making merit or giving donations. 

It’s like giving fertilizer to a tree that’s already died… 

In the same way, if you just go through the motions of making merit, your original aim—to abandon greed, aversion, and delusion—won’t bear fruit. 

The act of generosity is simply the fertilizer of merit. When the essence of merit has died, there’s no way that you can eat the fertilizer, for it’s nothing but filth—cow dung and chicken droppings…

People by and large act in ways that aren’t in line with their minds. 

Some people make donations but their hearts are still greedy, as when they give a gift because they want to become millionaires. 

Some people give one dollar expecting to get ten thousand or a hundred thousand in return.

Some people observe the precepts but their hearts are still angry, jealous, or hateful toward this person or that. 

Some people meditate so that they can be beautiful and shapely in their next birth, or because they want to become devas up in heaven. 

Other people want to be this or that—always looking for something in exchange. This kind of merit is still wide of the mark.

The Buddha taught us to be generous for the sake of doing away with greed, to observe the precepts to do away with anger, and to meditate to do away with delusion, not for the sake of feeding these defilements. 

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Excerpted from The Essence of Merits in The Heightened Mind: Dhamma Talks of Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo, translated by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu.

https://www.dhammatalks.org/ebook_index.html#heightenedMind