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SB x
I dedicate this post to my first ever spiritual teacher (in the physical world), Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who initiated me through the Lamrim— the Tibetan Buddhist path to to enlightenment. This path led me to Vajrayana Buddhism and Tantra, to which I am a devotee.
There’s something I feel called to talk about today.
Often I come onto Substack and my social media platforms and simply share about my life— my experience within my relationships, my family and things that are important to me.
I don’t often share about the depth and time I put into my spiritual practise, my lineage or the importance of the spiritual work I devote myself to.
And as the internet becomes flooded with more self help and spiritual “gurus” who love serving for the sake of material satisfaction and gain (aka. a healthy bank account balance), I feel strongly called to speak to some of the less glamorous, more hidden and subtle work that myself and many other spiritual teachers are doing, without all of the bells and whistles and accolades to show for it.
I have a love for the material — for the luxe natural latex king bed I wake up in every morning, the views of the forest that I look out into as I sip my morning tea. My wardrobe filled with silks and furs. I own and am surrounded by beautiful things, beautiful people and a life I am deeply grateful for.
And yet this is only possible for me because of the spiritual merit I have accumulated.
The nights I am woken in the night by a spirit passing over, that I light a candle and do mantra for.
Or the animal that has been hit on the side of the road, who I help pass over.
The work that I do, behind closed doors, that I do not post about — the work that I do tirelessly, for free, because it is important to my heart to do so, and it cultivates compassion and merit within my life.
And you might ask “what is spiritual merit?”
That is what I’ll unpack here.
So, what is spiritual merit?
Spiritual merit is a concept found across many contemplative traditions, most developed in Buddhist and Hindu thought, though variations appear in Christian, Islamic, and folk religious systems worldwide. At its core, it describes a kind of moral-spiritual credit accumulated through virtuous action, which shapes future circumstances, states of consciousness, or progress toward liberation.
In Buddhist traditions, merit (punya in Sanskrit, puñña in Pali) accrues through wholesome actions rooted in generosity, ethical conduct, and mental cultivation. Giving alms to monastics, practicing compassion, meditating, and studying the dharma all generate merit, which is understood to condition future rebirths and gradually clear the way toward awakening. Merit isn't quite karma in the popular Western sense of cosmic tit-for-tat; it functions more like a cultivated momentum, a quality of energy that ripens circumstances favorable to further practice and eventual liberation. Practitioners often dedicate the merit of their actions to the benefit of all sentient beings, a practice that itself is considered meritorious, since it counters the grasping, self-focused mind that merit practice is meant to dissolve in the first place.
Hindu traditions carry a related but distinct framework through the idea of punya versus papa, merit versus demerit, tied closely to dharmic action, ritual observance, and the law of karma across lifetimes. Here merit tends to be woven more tightly into cosmological bookkeeping: accumulated punya can improve one's station in future births, though the deeper aim in most schools remains moksha, liberation from the cycle altogether, which merit alone cannot secure. Right action performed without attachment to its fruits, as articulated in the Bhagavad Gita, is held as spiritually superior to merit-seeking action.
Christian and Islamic frameworks have their own cognates. Catholic theology developed a doctrine of merit tied to grace and good works, historically bound up in practices like indulgences, though shaped heavily by later Reformation critiques that emphasized grace as unearned. In Islam, the concept of thawab describes divine reward accrued through righteous deeds, prayer, and charity, weighed against sin on the Day of Judgment.
A thread running through most of these systems is the tension between merit as a subtle form of spiritual transaction and merit as something that dissolves once genuine wisdom or surrender arises. The more advanced teachings in nearly every tradition tend to point past the accounting altogether, toward action performed for its own sake rather than for what it earns.
It is unseen. It it is unpaid for. It is volunteer work, that does not give you anything material per se, but it fills you on the inside and it opens your heart.
And ironically, whilst not the point of it all, I have noticed in my own life, that it actually DOES amount to material gain. Because those with spiritual merit are often rewarded. Not always materially, as spiritual merit alone is more than enough — the rebirth into higher planes, the reduction of karma in a future life… but in my experience, it also amounts to the higher powers at be rewarding me, with material wealth and also spiritual protection.
A friend of mine, this morning posted about those with spiritual merit often being protected spiritually. This has absolutely been my experience throughout my life. I technically should be dead — I have had two near death misses in my life and am fortune, that due to very precise protection and guidance, I was able to remain on this earthly plane. I am happy to speak about these, in another post.
I also wrote about my journey of experiencing spirtual protection from harm in another recent article called, “I am protected”.
I have had people try to cast magic upon me (I have had people actually witness this and report it to me), only to later find out that they then had to deal with serious repercussions in their life — psychosis, car accidents… the list goes on. I have seen it happen a number of times.
It is through spiritual merit, that I am protected by Grace.
This conversation feels like an important one right now, because spirituality has become a commodity in the world, and people are losing meaning and forgetting about why they are practising spirituality in the first place. Spirituality is least concerned with personal enlightenment, merely for the sake of personal gain.
The Boddhisattva Path, the path in Buddhism that is called The Mahayana path, is about practising spiritual overflow and offering oneself over to the divine, for the sake of liberation of all — not just for self interest. This is the path that I was initiated onto, that I walk and that my daughter now also walks.
With love,
Sigourney Belle x
