iti27:0.1So It Was Said 27
iti27:0.2The Book of the Ones
iti27:0.3Chapter Three
iti27:0.4The Meditation on Love
iti27:1.1This was said by the Buddha, the Perfected One: that is what I heard.
iti27:2.1“Mendicants, of all the grounds for making worldly merit, none are worth a sixteenth part of the heart’s release by love.
iti27:2.2Surpassing them, the heart’s release by love shines and glows and dazzles.
iti27:3.1It’s like how the radiance of all the stars is not worth a sixteenth part of the moon’s radiance. Surpassing them, the moon’s radiance shines and glows and dazzles.
iti27:3.2In the same way, of all the grounds for making worldly merit, none are worth a sixteenth part of the heart’s release by love. Surpassing them, the heart’s release by love shines and glows and dazzles.
iti27:4.1It’s like the last month of the rainy season, in autumn, when the heavens are sunny and cloudless. And as the sun is rising to the firmament, having dispelled all the darkness of space, it shines and glows and dazzles.
iti27:4.2In the same way, of all the grounds for making worldly merit, none are worth a sixteenth part of the heart’s release by love. Surpassing them, the heart’s release by love shines and glows and dazzles.
iti27:5.1It’s like how, at the crack of dawn, the morning star shines and glows and dazzles.
iti27:5.2In the same way, of all the grounds for making worldly merit, none are worth a sixteenth part of the heart’s release by love. Surpassing them, the heart’s release by love shines and glows and dazzles.”
iti27:5.3The Buddha spoke this matter.
iti27:5.4On this it is said:
iti27:6.1“A mindful one who develops
iti27:6.2limitless love
iti27:6.3weakens the fetters,
iti27:6.4seeing the ending of attachments.
iti27:7.1Loving just one creature with a hateless heart
iti27:7.2makes you a good person.
iti27:7.3Sympathetic for all creatures,
iti27:7.4a noble one creates abundant merit.
iti27:8.1The royal potentates conquered this land
iti27:8.2and traveled around sponsoring sacrifices—
iti27:8.3horse sacrifice, human sacrifice,
iti27:8.4the sacrifices of the ‘casting of the yoke-pin’, the ‘royal soma drinking’, and the ‘unimpeded’.
iti27:9.1These are not worth a sixteenth part
iti27:9.2of the mind developed with love,
iti27:9.3as starlight cannot rival the moon.
iti27:10.1Don’t kill or cause others to kill,
iti27:10.2don’t conquer or encourage others to conquer,
iti27:10.3with love for all living creatures—
iti27:10.4you’ll have no enmity for anyone.”
iti27:11.1This too is a matter that was spoken by the Blessed One: that is what I heard.