The Dhammapada - Evil

Take to the Dharma,

for if one solely takes to the world,

the world and its murky shadow of a self

shall enter into one's mental abode.

Habitually forming and generating

positive merit through avoiding

the stinging influences of desire,

good habits follow those who follow good intentions.

Though not perfect, the sadhaka

throws away bucket loads 

of unsatisfying and unnecessary

experiential phenomena just by taking

to heart the ever auspicious seeds of the Buddha's Wisdom.

Impermanently happy when planting

the seeds of their own destruction

by means of disregarding the injunctions

of the Accomplished Ones,

and permanently sad when reaping

the matured fruits of their own debased actions,

the residents of Samsara weep upon awakening

and continue to weep when going to sleep.

As there is no true rest

for the wicked at heart,

the rest that is given by peaceful meditation

upon Emptiness is all that is needed

by those who are for the world's gradual or immediate upliftment.

Whether in want of Samsara or Nirvana,

the result is the same for both parties of practitioners.

Practicing to be of a desirous nature,

the desirous accumulate one degraded tendency

after another just as a pot eventually fills up

with every drop of water that is added into it.

Practicing to be of a desireless nature,

the desireless only accumulate

what is meant to be accumulated while reaching

the Supreme Destination of a purified threefold vehicle of body, speech and mind.

As those who are fearful for their ongoing lives

do not drink or touch the poison

of impurified conceptions of existence,

so too does the sadhaka harm neither

his or her mental abode 

through doing that which causes

perpetual suffering to the innocent of heart.

Those who respect with utmost sincerity

the purity of others will not become

mixed into the decaying pool

of rotten and worn out emotions,

but will only be bathed in the Clear Luminosity

of their own Empty Minds.

Being of the Buddha Nature,

no harm will come to such a sadhaka,

for that type of sadhaka belongs to the pure conception of Liberated Awareness.

Finding no adequate shelter from the ways of Samsara,

the unhappy try to hide in the most remote

of places, whether within or without,

but due to their self consuming appetites,

the shadow of desire and the shadow of death

follows them wherever they are.

By reversing one's tendencies

and by changing into something that is unchangeable,

the sadhaka can go anywhere

without having to see his or her projections,

for the mental abode of the sadhaka

is comparable to the Infinite and Far Reaching Sky.

Copyright - The Blue Cross And Shining Sunset Academy

Author: Julian Colgan