Evil (idea)

Chapter Nine -- Evil

1. Hasten to do good and restrain your
   mind from evil. One who is slow in doing good,
   one's mind delights in evil.
   
2. Should a person commit evil, let one
   not do it again and again. Let one not find pleasure
   therein, for painful is the accumulation of evil.
   
3. Should a person do good, let one do
   it again and again. Let one find pleasure therein,
   for blissful is the accumulation of good.
   
4. It may be well with the evil-doer as long
   as the evil ripens not, but when it does ripen, then
   the evil doer sees (the painful results of) one's evil deeds.
   
5. It may be ill with the doer of good as long
   as the good ripens not, but when it does ripen
   then the doer of good sees (the pleasant results of)
   one's good deeds.
   
6. Think not lightly of evil, saying, "It
   will not come to me." Drop by drop is the water
   pot filled; likewise, the fool, gathering it little by
   little, fills oneself with evil.
   
7. Think not lightly of good, saying, "It
   will not come to me." Drop by drop is the water
   pot filled; likewise, the wise person, gathering it
   little by little, fills oneself with good.
   
8. Just as a trader with a small escort and
   great wealth would avoid a perilous route, or
   just as one desiring to live avoids poison, even
   so should one shun evil.
   
9. If on the one hand there is no wound, one
   may even carry poison in it. Poison does not
   affect one who is free from wounds, and for one
   who does no evil, there is no ill.
   
10. Like fine dust thrown against the wind,
    evil falls back upon that fool who offends an
    inoffensive, pure and guiltless person.
    
11. Some are born in the womb; the wicked
    are born in hell; the devout go to heaven; the
    stainless pass into Nibbana.
    
12. Neither in the sky nor in mid-ocean,
    nor by entering into mountain clefts, nowhere
    in the world is there a place where one may escape
    from the results of evil deeds.
    
13. Neither in the sky nor in mid-ocean,
    nor by entering into mountain clefts, nowhere
    in the world is there a place where one will not
    be overcome by death.