If donating blood gives us a lot of merits, will donating our body after we die to a hospital help us accrue even more merits?

Answer
by Venerable Dhattajeevo Bhikku 

 

You must understand first that whatever merits you are to perform; you must be alive to perform them, and not wait to perform them after you are dead. This is because the field of merits builds up on the strictness of the charitable and pious deeds while you are alive.

To donate blood is a wonderful donation and a great method of merit making because:

1) The person aims to have pure merits because the intention of this type of merit stems from kindness in the mind.

2) The person who is giving must have a superior prominent energy in his/her mind. This is because blood is not overly abundant in the body. There is only a sufficient amount for the body to use.   

Therefore, at the same time it is necessary to have the exact amount of blood to survive, measured to the drop, for the body to utilize. So with that reasoning we shouldn’t give our blood to anyone. However, because of your kindness to other people, you make up your mind to give.

When you make up your mind to donate like this, it is a way to train and give the mind energy to kill Kilesa (derangements, and defilements of the mind, cravings attachments, greed, anger and delusion), and kill stinginess that is buried deeply in the mind. It is hidden so deeply in the minds and in the hearts of people who possess stinginess and greediness – it is profoundly buried in all of them. Even in terms of our belongings, we still want to hold onto them.

But now, these days, we see Dukkha in our friends all over the world, which awakens the beginning of kindness filling up in the mind. It then fills up so fully that even with the blood in our bodies, we then give to the needy.  And if they perform the good deeds with our blood, this will yield you a lot of merits.

With regards to donating your body after you have died, I must tell you that the body of a dead person truthfully does not give any benefit to the owner. It is the body that is left over from the owner. If the hospital uses it for teaching students, for their knowledge, it will yield little benefit for the owner.

But if you asked about killing off a stingy mind that was buried in the heart or not, the answer is there is no benefit. This is because after you pass away, the body does not belong to you anymore. You do not own that body.

So if you hope to gain merits, you can only hope to accrue them by performing charitable and pious deeds, and you have to offer them when you are alive.

For example - your eyes – if you wish to donate them and the recipient is a very good person then hurry up and donate one of your eyes and keep one for yourself.

Or let’s say that I have 2 kidneys. If you are a good person and it is necessary for you to receive a good kidney or else you will die then please take one of my kidneys. I can keep one, which is enough for me. This way you will gain great merits.

But if you should wait until you die, and then donate an organ when you yourself are unable to use it, and you donate it to a person, this method of donation will yield you very little merit.

Have you ever thought about our dead bodies that they will become food for worms anyway although it is not used for anything else.  Do you want to obtain merit from the worms? We do not really want to obtain merit from worms.

Even if we want to do so, they would say that you don’t earn merit because the bodies are no longer used.

We are tired of the dead bodies.  We do not want them. Why should we? They are not useful any more.  We are bored of them.  They are old, diseased, and discarded.  Let’s take the new bodies in next lifetime.

Therefore, for any kind of merit we make, whenever we make donation, do it when you are alive.  “Well, if you want my house, wait until I die and you can have it.”

We will earn little merit.  If we really want to earn merit, we can pick up the certificate of ownership and sign right away when we are alive.  To do so, we fully earn merit as well as benevolence in our minds that follow us to the future lifetimes.

The stinginess of the mind will be killed off completely because you have to use a very superior energy of the mind to accomplish this. It is also a good pattern or example of kindness for others to see.

 

Frugality in human mind will be loosen.  We earn great merit from this point.  My dear fellows, rush up to make merit when you are alive.  Don’t wait for the merit dedicated to you after death.  Please do it this way. 

 

For donating our dead bodies, we earn little merit.  Don’t expect much from it because it is what we already discard.  If we intend to make merit by contributing properties, objects, blood, or organs, we have to do it when we are alive.  This is a big merit.