དམ་པའ་ཆས་པད་མ་དཀར་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད 8.25

8.25

and when they have been introduced to the Dharma they listen to it, and having heard it for just one moment, just one instant, briefly, they attain the results of becoming stream entrants, once-returners, and nonreturners, up to becoming arhats, who have brought the defilements to cessation, become meditators, great meditators, and meditate on the eight liberations.

“What do you think, Ajita? Would this man, this lord of generosity, this lord of great generosity, have generated vast countless immeasurable merit through that as a cause?”

The bodhisattva mahāsattva Maitreya replied to the Bhagavān, “It is so, Bhagavān. It is so, Sugata. That man, that lord of generosity, that lord of great generosity, would have generated vast merit through that causal factor, through giving to those beings the things that bring happiness—not to speak, Bhagavān, of establishing them in the higher state of arhathood.”

Then the Bhagavān said to bodhisattva mahāsattva Maitreya, “Ajita, I declare this to you,⁴⁷² I make this known to you. There is the merit generated by that man, that lord of generosity, that lord of great generosity through providing the things that brought happiness to all the beings in four hundred thousand countless world realms, and establishing them in arhathood. There is also the amount of merit generated by the fiftieth person who heard and rejoiced in just one verse from this Dharma teaching, or rejoiced in just one line, after it had been passed from one to another. The amount of merit possessed by that person who rejoiced—who rejoiced in just one verse from this Dharma teaching or rejoiced in just one line—after it had been passed from one to another fifty times, would be far greater than the amount of merit gained by that man, that lord of generosity, that lord of great generosity through his generosity and establishing beings in arhathood.