Of course, the world economy is going down, but even if the world economy is going up, there are many people in the world going down. That happens—that is the explanation and description of karma. And even when the world economy is going down, there are individual people going up due to their karma. What I am saying is that if we have lots of merit, we don’t suffer.

I know nothing about the economy, but regarding how we spend money, we have to decide what is meaningful. Spend money on what is meaningful and cut down spending on what is meaningless. In this way, we and other sentient beings receive a lot of benefit. By making offerings to the Triple Gem, we collect unbelievable benefit and happiness in this life and in future lives, up to liberation and enlightenment.

When the economy goes down, it means we should practice the good heart more towards sentient beings in our daily lives. We should develop more compassion and practice more patience. We don’t know who’s a buddha or bodhisattva, and if we get angry with a buddha or bodhisattva, then one thousand eons of merit that we have created in the past is destroyed in one second. Even if we dedicate it to the enlightenment of all sentient beings, if we don’t seal it with emptiness, the merit can be weakened, even if it is not destroyed.

We need to collect a lot of merit in our day-to-day life and practice kindness every day towards sentient beings, all the time, as much as possible, from the heart—this is Dharma. Each act of kindness becomes the cause for success not just in this life but in hundreds of thousands of lifetimes. From one act of kindness, all our wishes for happiness are fulfilled. Why? Because we fulfill the wishes of human beings, animals and other sentient beings. That is very, very important. Then we don’t experience an economic recession.

Practice with joyfulness every day. Whatever good things we see or hear about others, whatever good things happen, always rejoice. Think, “How wonderful,” like a mother rejoicing and praising her child, who she cherishes more than her life. If we act like this, then psychologically our mind is happy all the time—with no depression or unhappiness. We collect the most extensive causes of success and happiness when we rejoice. In one second, we collect limitless skies of merit. It is the easiest way to collect good luck, merit, and fulfill our wishes for happiness, and also fulfill the wishes of all sentient beings for happiness.

Then, thirdly, is patience. We may collect a lot of merit, but without patience, it is all destroyed.

Next, when someone harms us, we should practice forgiveness instead of harboring the harm in our heart. We create peace starting from one person, up to world peace. If we make a mistake and say some bad words or become angry, immediately apologize. Then there’s no grudge held by ourselves or others, and we create world peace.

Another quality to develop is contentment, especially so that we do not get addicted to alcohol or drugs and live in non-virtue. Also, develop courage in practicing Dharma: any good action that brings peace and happiness to us, the world, and others.

These are things we can do as the antidotes to the recession. Do something other than worry. Worrying makes us crazy; it doesn’t help.