The eleven benefits of loving-kindness
“The Benefits of Love”
The Buddha tells the mendicants that eleven benefits can be expected when the heart’s release by love has been cultivated, developed, and practiced thoroughly, and made a vehicle and a basis. The benefits are listed plainly: you sleep at ease, wake happily, and have no bad dreams; humans and non-humans love you; deities protect you; you cannot be harmed by fire, poison, or blade; your mind quickly enters immersion; your face is clear and bright; you do not feel lost when you die; and, if you go no further, you are reborn in a realm of divinity. The text is brief and repeats its opening line at the close.
A note on this text. Several benefits involve deities, protection from fire and poison, and a heavenly realm after death, stated as facts without explanation.
The full text
Numbered Discourses 11.15 · 2. Recollection · The Benefits of Love · translated by Bhikkhu Sujato · public domain (CC0) · about 1 min · on SuttaCentral
“Mendicants, you can expect eleven benefits when the heart’s release by love has been cultivated, developed, and practiced, made a vehicle and a basis, kept up, consolidated, and properly implemented.
What eleven? You sleep at ease. You wake happily. You don’t have bad dreams. Humans love you. Non-humans love you. Deities protect you. You can’t be harmed by fire, poison, or blade. Your mind quickly enters immersion. Your face is clear and bright. You don’t feel lost when you die. If you don’t penetrate any higher, you’ll be reborn in a realm of divinity. You can expect eleven benefits when the heart’s release by love has been cultivated, developed, and practiced, made a vehicle and a basis, kept up, consolidated, and properly implemented.”