{"collection":"Khuddaka Nikaya","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/suttacentral_iti22/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/suttacentral_iti22","id":"suttacentral_iti22","license":"CC0","rights_basis":"suttacentral_bilara_data_cc0","source":"suttacentral","source_url":"https://suttacentral.net/iti22/en/sujato","summary":null,"tags":["Early Buddhist Texts","Khuddaka Nikaya"],"text":"This was said by the Buddha, the Perfected One: that is what I heard. \u201cMendicants, don\u2019t fear good deeds. For \u2018good deeds\u2019 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\u2019t 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, \u2018Of what deed of mine is this the fruit and result, that I am now so mighty and powerful?\u2019 Then I thought, \u2018It is the fruit and result of three kinds of deeds: giving, self-control, and restraint.\u2019\u201d The Buddha spoke this matter. On this it is said: \u201cOne 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.\u201d This too is a matter that was spoken by the Blessed One: that is what I heard.","title":"The Benefits of Love","tradition":"Khuddaka Nikaya","translated_text":null,"word_count":275}