Orimatīra sutta: The Near Shore

“Mendicants, I will teach you the near shore and the far shore. Listen and apply your mind well, I will speak.”

“Yes, sir,” they replied. The Buddha said this:

“And what, mendicants, is the near shore? What is the far shore? Wrong view is the near shore, and right view is the far shore. … Wrong freedom is the near shore, and right freedom is the far shore. This is the near shore, and this is the far shore.

Few are those among humans
who cross to the far shore.
The rest just run
around on the near shore.

When the teaching is well explained,
the people who practice accordingly
will cross over
Death’s dominion so hard to pass.

Rid of dark qualities,
an astute person would develop the bright.
Having left home for homelessness
in seclusion, where joy is hard,

they’d long for satisfaction there.
Forsaking sensual pleasures, owning nothing,
an astute person would cleanse themselves
of mental corruptions.

And those whose minds are rightly developed
in the awakening factors;
letting go of attachments,
they delight in not grasping.
With defilements ended, brilliant,
they are quenched in this world.”