It's taught within Buddhism that we can share the results of our good Kamma with others. Now to give you an example that goes a little around about. My parents, and many other people around the world, when somebody dies in their family, a relative or a good friend, my parents would write a check and send it to the Children's Hospital in the dead persons' name.
Now in this case my parents were making good Kamma. Is the dead person making good Kamma? Basically my parents are trying to share their good fortune, they've got money to give, their idea is to give and they're hoping that the dead person will get the benefit of it. But does the dead person actually get the Kamma?
Let's look at this a little bit differently: Why did my parents give the donation to the hospital? They obviously liked their relative or friend, which meant that their relative or friend was a nice person. Because their relative or friend was a nice person, my parents gave money when they died. So isn't the reason they gave money because their relative or friend was a nice person to begin with? So because this relative or friend was a nice person, the result was money was given to a hospital.
It makes sense according to Buddhism, that this friend gets part of that good Kamma, because if they had not been a good person, the money would never have gone to the hospital. So according to Buddhism both the relative or friend and my parents are going to get merit out of it, they're all going to make good Kamma although the initial action we're talking about was only something my parents did. This is an interesting thing to consider.
When you're kind to other people and they feel that kindness and then do something because of it, isn't that part of the first person's Kamma, your own good Kamma? Rosemary and I have taught for 17 years with five thousand students receiving these teachings and a lot of you have passed the teachings on to others. When you passed it on to others, is it only your good Kamma? Or do Rosemary and I receive some? According to Buddhism we do receive some because that's the ripple of our own Kamma. So when you're doing something good and you wish it to others, Buddhism says its possible, however not just through the wishing, but through doing good.
Now when a person dies in Thailand, a Theravadin Buddhism country, they have almost the same sort of thing at funerals as to what my parents do.
We've been to a funeral where they lit the body and the fire is roaring away, when all of a sudden somebody is throwing coins into the group! There are a hundred people present for the funeral and someone is throwing money! The kids and the beggars are running around grabbing the coins. This money that they are throwing was to help the dead person make good Kamma. They took some of the money from his estate and they threw it out as a gift for kids and beggars.
So this again was sharing of good Kamma. But the dead person is already gone, they weren't actually doing it. Yet the people left behind were doing something that they would hope would benefit the dead person. So these are different ways of looking at it according to Theravadin Buddhism.