Numbered Discourses 8.1

1. Love

The Benefits of Love

So I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Sāvatthī in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s monastery. There the Buddha addressed the bhikkhus, “Bhikkhus!”

“Venerable sir,” they replied. The Buddha said this:

“Bhikkhus, you can expect eight benefits when the heart’s release by love has been cultivated, developed, and practiced, made a vehicle and a basis, kept up, consolidated, and properly implemented. What eight? You sleep at ease. You wake happily. You don’t have bad dreams. Humans love you. Non-humans love you. Deities protect you. You can’t be harmed by fire, poison, or blade. If you don’t reach any higher, you’ll be reborn in a Brahmā realm. You can expect these eight benefits when the heart’s release by love has been cultivated, developed, and practiced, made a vehicle and a basis, kept up, consolidated, and properly implemented.

A mindful one who develops limitless love weakens the fetters, seeing the ending of attachments.

Loving just one creature with a hateless heart makes you a good person. Compassionate for all creatures, a noble one creates abundant merit.

The royal potentates conquered this land and traveled around sponsoring sacrifices—horse sacrifice, human sacrifice, the sacrifices of the ‘casting of the yoke-pin’, the ‘royal soma drinking’, and the ‘unbarred’.

These are not worth a sixteenth part of the mind developed with love, as all the constellations of stars aren’t worth a sixteenth part of the moon’s light.

Don’t kill or cause others to kill, don’t conquer or encourage others to conquer, with love for all sentient beings, you’ll have no enmity for anyone.”