iti22:0.1So It Was Said 22
iti22:0.2The Book of the Ones
iti22:0.3Chapter Three
iti22:0.4The Benefits of Love
iti22:1.1This was said by the Buddha, the Perfected One: that is what I heard.
iti22:2.1“Mendicants, don’t fear good deeds.
iti22:2.2For ‘good deeds’ is a term for happiness, for what is likable, desirable, and agreeable.
iti22:2.3I recall undergoing for a long time the likable, desirable, and agreeable results of good deeds performed over a long time.
iti22:2.4Having 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.
iti22:2.5As the eon contracted I went to the realm of sublime luminosity.
iti22:2.6As it expanded I was reborn in an empty mansion of divinity.
iti22:3.1There I was the Divinity, the Great Divinity, the vanquisher, the unvanquished, the universal seer, the wielder of power.
iti22:3.2I was Sakka, lord of gods, thirty-six times.
iti22:3.3Many 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.
iti22:3.4Not to mention regional kingship!
iti22:4.1Then I thought,
iti22:4.2‘Of what deed of mine is this the fruit and result, that I am now so mighty and powerful?’
iti22:4.3Then I thought,
iti22:4.4‘It is the fruit and result of three kinds of deeds:
iti22:4.5giving, self-control, and restraint.’”
iti22:4.6The Buddha spoke this matter.
iti22:4.7On this it is said:
iti22:5.1“One should practice only good deeds,
iti22:5.2whose happy outcome stretches ahead.
iti22:5.3Giving and moral conduct,
iti22:5.4developing a mind of love:
iti22:6.1having developed these
iti22:6.2three things yielding happiness,
iti22:6.3that astute one is reborn
iti22:6.4in a happy, pleasing world.”
iti22:7.1This too is a matter that was spoken by the Blessed One: that is what I heard.