{"collection":"Anguttara Nikaya","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/suttacentral_an8.1/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/suttacentral_an8.1","id":"suttacentral_an8.1","license":"CC0","rights_basis":"suttacentral_bilara_data_cc0","source":"suttacentral","source_url":"https://suttacentral.net/an8.1/en/sujato","summary":null,"tags":["Anguttara Nikaya","Early Buddhist Texts"],"text":"So I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near S\u0101vatth\u012b in Jeta\u2019s Grove, An\u0101thapi\u1e47\u1e0dika\u2019s monastery. There the Buddha addressed the mendicants, \u201cMendicants!\u201d \u201cVenerable sir,\u201d they replied. The Buddha said this: \u201cMendicants, you can expect eight benefits when the heart\u2019s 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\u2019t have bad dreams. Humans love you. Non-humans love you. Deities protect you. You can\u2019t be harmed by fire, poison, or blade. If you don\u2019t penetrate any higher, you\u2019ll be reborn in a realm of divinity. You can expect these eight benefits when the heart\u2019s 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 true person. Sympathetic for all creatures, a noble one creates abundant merit. The royal potentates conquered this land and traveled around sponsoring sacrifices\u2014 horse sacrifice, human sacrifice, the sacrifices of the \u2018casting of the yoke-pin\u2019, <j>the \u2018royal soma drinking\u2019, and the \u2018unimpeded\u2019. These are not worth a sixteenth part of the mind developed with love, as all the constellations of stars aren\u2019t worth a sixteenth part of the moon\u2019s light. Don\u2019t kill or cause others to kill, don\u2019t conquer or encourage others to conquer, with love for all sentient beings, you\u2019ll have no enmity for anyone.\u201d","title":"The Benefits of Love","tradition":"Anguttara Nikaya","translated_text":null,"word_count":261}