Iti 22 - The Benefits of Love
Translated by Bhikkhu Sujato
Source: https://suttacentral.net/iti22/en/sujato
License: CC0-1.0

So It Was Said 22
The Book of the Ones
Chapter Three
The Benefits of Love
This was said by the Buddha, the Perfected One: that is what I heard.
“Mendicants, don’t fear good deeds. For ‘good deeds’ is a term for happiness, for what is likable, desirable, and agreeable. I recall undergoing for a long time the likable, desirable, and agreeable results of good deeds performed over a long time. Having developed a mind of love for seven years, for seven eons of the cosmos contracting and expanding I didn’t return to this world again. As the eon contracted I went to the realm of sublime luminosity. As it expanded I was reborn in an empty mansion of divinity.
There I was the Divinity, the Great Divinity, the vanquisher, the unvanquished, the universal seer, the wielder of power. I was Sakka, lord of gods, thirty-six times. Many hundreds of times I was a king, a wheel-turning monarch, a just and principled king. My dominion extended to all four sides, I achieved stability in the country, and I possessed the seven treasures. Not to mention regional kingship!
Then I thought, ‘Of what deed of mine is this the fruit and result, that I am now so mighty and powerful?’ Then I thought, ‘It is the fruit and result of three kinds of deeds: giving, self-control, and restraint.’”
The Buddha spoke this matter. On this it is said:
“One should practice only good deeds,
whose happy outcome stretches ahead.
Giving and moral conduct,
developing a mind of love:
having developed these
three things yielding happiness,
that astute one is reborn
in a happy, pleasing world.”
This too is a matter that was spoken by the Blessed One: that is what I heard.