Chapter Five :Cause and Effect 29 One day, Ch’oe Naesŏn offered a meal to the congregation.
After the meal, the Founding Master said,
“Even when people make the same amount of merit, there cannot but be certain discrepancies in the fruition each person receives. Merit involves not only material quantity, but also the depth or shallowness of one’s mind, as well as the ability of the receivers. A farmer in Yŏnggwang assisted three officials in crossing a river one monsoon season, and therefore became acquainted with them. Even though the farmer, on the same day and time, worked equally to help those three men cross the river, later on, when they came back to reward him, there were considerable discrepancies according to each man’s power and ability. Even though this may be only a simple story about what happened in real life, the principle generally reveals how one makes and receives merit throughout the past, present, and future.” http://www.wonbuddhism.org/
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