Which Suttas Did The Buddha Actually Say This? When we give service and support to others, we become happier within ourselves

The Buddha understood the human mind very well, and pointed out that when we give service and support to others, we become happier within ourselves.

Saw this quote from a Thai monastic on Mastodon, posted by someone else.

I’ve taken notes on 3 of the 5 nikayas.

I would have loved to find something like that, but I must have missed it.

Does anyone know of specific suttas where the Buddha stated that supporting other people ( aside from the Sangha which he mentioned often ) makes people happier?

Thanks for any clues!

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AN5.37 perhaps?

(3) Having given happiness, one partakes of happiness, whether celestial or human.

The wise one is a giver of life,
strength, beauty, and discernment.
The intelligent one is a donor of happiness
and in turn acquires happiness.

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AN 5.35 also:

“Bhikkhus, there are these five benefits of giving. What five? (1) One is dear and agreeable to many people. (2) Good persons resort to one. (3) One acquires a good reputation. (4) One is not deficient in the layperson’s duties. (5) With the breakup of the body, after death, one is reborn in a good destination, in a heavenly world. These are the five benefits in giving.”

By giving, one becomes dear,
one follows the duty of the good;
the good self-controlled monks
always resort to one.

They teach one the Dhamma
that dispels all suffering,
having understood which
the taintless one here attains nibbāna.

I also forgot a sutta where Buddha says if beings knew the merits of sharing, they would never let a meal pass without it being an occasion for sharing. Something like that.

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I think it’s EĀ 10.6 and Iti 26, and maybe also the 51st sūtra of the Chinese Iti.

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(Iti 22)

Mendicants, don’t fear good deeds [puñña = merit].

For ‘good deeds’ is a term for happiness, for what is likable, desirable, and agreeable.

(AN 3.57)

Vaccha, this is what I say: ‘You even make merit by tipping out dishwashing water in a cesspool or a sump with living creatures in it, thinking, “May any creatures here be nourished!”’ How much more then for human beings!

(AN 7.52)

“Having given this, not seeking his own profit, not with a mind attached [to the reward], not seeking to store up for himself, nor [with the thought], ‘I’ll enjoy this after death,’

“—nor with the thought, ‘Giving is good,’

“—nor with the thought, ‘This was given in the past, done in the past, by my father & grandfather. It would not be right for me to let this old family custom be discontinued,’

“—nor with the thought, ‘I am well-off. These are not well-off. It would not be right for me, being well-off, not to give a gift to those who are not well-off,’ nor with the thought, ‘Just as there were the great sacrifices of the sages of the past—Atthaka, Vamaka, Vamadeva, Vessamitta, Yamataggi, Angirasa, Bharadvaja, Vasettha, Kassapa, & Bhagu—in the same way this will be my distribution of gifts,’

“—nor with the thought, ‘When this gift of mine is given, it makes the mind serene. Gratification & joy arise,’

“—but with the thought, ‘This is an ornament for the mind, a support for the mind’—on the break-up of the body, after death, he reappears in the company of Brahma’s Retinue. Then, having exhausted that action, that power, that status, that sovereignty, he is a non-returner. He does not come back to this world.

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