Seeking Opportunity: Why Do Some Always Find Luck, While Others Struggle?

Understand clearly that opportunity is the result of cause and effect (karmic law). To have opportunities, one must create merit, be willing to make sacrifices, and live in accordance with one's own blessings from merit.

In life, some people seem to always encounter good fortune. Jobs come easily, promotions are frequent, and life flows smoothly. Conversely, others remain perpetually struggling, searching endlessly for a single opportunity. So, where do opportunities come from? Is it all merely random chance? In the dharma talk titled "Seeking Opportunity," Venerable Thich Chan Quang decodes this secret through the profound formula of cause and effect (karmic law).

### What is Opportunity? From Good Fortune to Happiness

According to the Venerable, opportunity is essentially good fortune in daily life. Thanks to these opportunities, we can more easily harvest success, happiness, and comfort. Opportunities take many forms: chances for education, finding employment, meeting a partner, advancing in one’s career, accumulating capital, or developing a business. Even at the final moment of life, we need an opportunity: to pass away peacefully, free from the torment of illness.

Opportunity means seeking good fortune within this life.

### Cause and Effect: The Price Paid for Every Opportunity

The Venerable teaches that to have opportunities, we must understand the law of cause and effect (karmic law). When our merit is not yet complete, every opportunity comes with a price. He offers examples: someone who wishes to become a director may carry debt for a lifetime; someone who desires a beautiful spouse may have to accept that person being paralyzed in both legs. Gaining one thing while losing another—this is the exchange required when merit is insufficient.

In this life, when our merit is not yet full but we desire a certain opportunity, we inevitably pay a price.

### The Formula for Finding Work: Love Your Job, Vow to Create Merit

The Venerable says that if one has obeyed parents since childhood and loves their work, they will face less unemployment as adults. However, if you are currently unemployed, you can make a vow before the Buddha: if I find work, I will dedicate a percentage of my income to creating merit. If done with sincerity, your merit will gradually increase, and opportunities will arise. Some may even need to vow to dedicate one hundred percent of their salary to merit, accepting to ask their parents for food, just to secure a job.

Love the work you do. Do not just do the work you love.

### Three Ways to Create Merit Correctly

Creating merit is not about acting haphazardly. The Venerable reiterates three principles:

Help good people perform virtuous deeds. Prevent bad people from doing wrong. Rescue those in dire peril.

This is how merit is created correctly. If you give alms to the wrong place, and money falls into the hands of bad people, you gain no merit and may even incur negative karma. Therefore, stay mindful and allocate your income wisely.

Help good people do good. Stop bad people from doing evil. And save those in crisis.

### Living Below Your Merit – The Secret to Constant Opportunity

The Venerable teaches two mottos: diligently create merit, and live below the level of merit you possess. Living below your merit means that if you have enough money to build a villa, you only build a small house; if you can afford a luxury car, you choose a modest vehicle. Conversely, living above your merit leads to bankruptcy and total loss, because you stretch beyond what your merit supports. Live frugally and humbly, so your merit grows thicker, and opportunities multiply.

No matter how much merit you have, you cannot escape the boundaries of what you possess. If you exceed your merit, you must trade something else away.

When we understand cause and effect (karmic law), we cease complaining about our fate. Opportunities do not arrive by themselves, but if we cultivate the mind/heart, create merit, and live in alignment with our portion of blessings from merit, luck will surely smile upon us. Today, are you ready to begin with one small act of merit? That is the first opportunity to change your life.