What outshines every good deed
Today, notice the difference between doing good and meeting someone with love.
- Read · about 2 minutes
“Mendicants, 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.It’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.Iti 27 · “The Meditation on Love” · tr. Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0)
From the text
The passage says that of all the grounds for making worldly merit, none is worth a sixteenth part of the heart's release by love, which surpasses and outshines them. It compares this to the way the light of all the stars together is not worth a sixteenth of the moon's light.
In everyday life
'Making merit' is the text's phrase for doing good, and the passage does not dismiss it. It ranks it. Set next to a heart released by love, good deeds are stars next to the moon: real light, but not the main light. One way to take 'the heart's release by love' is a mind so filled with goodwill that ill will has nowhere to stand. For an ordinary day, the useful part is the ordering. It is possible to do many good deeds with a cold heart, keeping score. It is also possible to do one small thing with real warmth. One way to take the text is that the warmth is what shines. Today's sit is about arriving, and near its end you can rest for a moment in simple goodwill toward whoever comes to mind, without doing anything at all. Then notice, through the day, which of your good deeds had that warmth in them.
- Sit · 3, 5 or 10 minutes
Arriving and Settling
Sit upright on a chair or cushion, hands resting in your lap. Read each cue as it appears; between cues you may close your eyes or lower your gaze.
- Live · during your day
Do one small kind thing today, such as holding a door or sending a short thank-you, and while doing it, deliberately wish the person well rather than just completing the gesture.
- Reflect · this evening
When did a good deed today have real warmth in it, and when was it just a gesture?
Answer on paper, or in the app’s journal, which stays on your iPhone.