Khema sutta: With Khema

Standing to one side, the godling Khema recited these verses in the Buddha’s presence:

“Fools and simpletons behave
like their own worst enemies,
doing wicked deeds
that ripen as bitter fruit.

It’s not good to do a deed
that plagues you later on,
for which you weep and wail,
as its effect stays with you.

It is good to do a deed
that doesn’t plague you later on,
that gladdens and cheers,
as its effect stays with you.”

“As a precaution, you should do
what you know is for your own welfare.
A thinker, an attentive one would not proceed
thinking like the cart driver.

Suppose a cart driver leaves the highway,
so even and well compacted.
They enter upon a rough road,
and fret as soon as their axle is broken.

So too, a dullard leaves the good
to follow what’s against the good.
Fallen in the jaws of death,
they fret like one whose axle is broken.”