Here one delights, afterwards one delights: one who does good delights in both worlds. ‘I have done good,’ one delights; and delights more upon going to a higher state.

The luminous pair of the previous verse. Nandati — rejoices, delights, finds joy — has a more spontaneous quality than modati in verse 16. It is the joy that arises without effort, like the fragrance of a flower that need not proclaim itself.

Puññaṃ me katan’ti nandati — “I have done good,” one rejoices: not as self-praise but as the pure satisfaction of congruence. The mind knows when it has acted with integrity, with compassion, with honesty. That knowing produces a serenity no sensory pleasure can equal.

Suggatiṃ gato — having gone to an elevated state: literally a higher realm in Buddhist cosmology; functionally, the quality of mind that becomes habitual in one who practices the good consistently. The mind is shaped by its repeated acts; one who acts well frequently cultivates a mind that naturally tends toward good.

This verse closes the first pair of vagga 1 with a note of profound hope: the path is practicable, the results are real, and genuine joy is not at the end of the path but in the path itself.