Notes (d): What are the Benefits of Morality

A man of virtuous conduct enjoys many benefits such as a gladdening heart which leads to joy and happiness (pāmojja). This in turn results in delightful satisfaction (pīti). In one who enjoys delightful satisfaction, there arises calmness of mind and body (passaddhi) followed by bliss (sukha). The tranquil state of mind and body brings about development of concentration (samādhi) which enables one to see things as they really are (yathābhūtañāṇa). When one gains this knowledge of things as they really are, one gets wearied of and detached from the ills and suffering of the cycle of rebirths. In him arises powerful insight into reality (balava vipassanā-ñāṇa). With this insight, he becomes detached from craving and achieves the knowledge of the Path, which leads to full liberation (vimutti) through the knowledge of Fruition. After gaining the Path and Fruition knowledge, he develops reflective knowledge (paccavekkhanā-ñāṇa) which enables him to see that the cessation of phenomena of the aggregates of nāma and rūpa has taken place in him. In other words, he has realised the Perfect Peace, Nibbāna. Thus morality has many benefits including the realisation of Nibbāna. (AN III, P. 615).

In several discourses, the Buddha mentions the following five benefits gained by one who observes precepts and who is established in morality:

(1) based on mindfulness through sīla, he acquires great wealth;

(2) he gains fame and good reputation;

(3) he approaches and enters any assembly of nobles, brahmins, householders or recluses with complete self-assurance (born of his morality), without any indication of inferiority complex;

(4) he lives the full span of life and dies unconfused. (An immoral person repents on his death bed that he has not done meritorious deeds throughout his life; a man of moral habits never suffers from any remorse when death approaches him;instead, memories of good deeds previously performed by him flashed past his mind’s eye making him fearless, mentally lucid, unconfused to face death even as someone who is about to acquire a golden pot gladly abandons an earthen pot.)

(5) he is reborn after that in happy realms of devas and human beings.

——(DN II, p. 73; AN II, p. 22 I; Vin III, p. 322)——

In the Ākaṅkheyya Sutta of the Majjhima Nikāya, the Buddha enumerates 13 benefits which come from practising morality; such benefits range from reverence and respect shown by fellow followers of the Teaching to realization of arahatta-phala, that is, attainment of arahatship.