Reading guide
The same three roots, an ocean this time
Like the discourse just before it, this one turns on greed, hate, and delusion (rāga, dosa, moha) left ungiven-up or given up. But where Greed (1st) pictured being “trapped” in Māra’s snare, this discourse reaches for a much more elaborate image: an ocean “with its waves and whirlpools, its saltwater crocodiles and monsters” (saūmi, savīci, sāvaṭṭa, sagaha, sarakkhasa — the Pali stacks qualifier upon qualifier). Whoever has not given up the three roots has simply never crossed this ocean; whoever has, has “crossed over and gone to the far shore,” and “stands on solid ground.”
Monks and nuns, named specifically in the Pali
One detail is worth flagging directly from the source: where this English translation reads simply “whoever,” the underlying Pali text specifies bhikkhu vā bhikkhuniyā vā — “any monk or any nun.” The more general English wording is a smooth, readable choice, but it obscures a genuine, specific detail in the original: the teaching is addressed to, and applies equally to, both the male and female monastic orders by name.
Crossing to “solid ground”
The verse extends the same imagery across two full stanzas — longer and denser than almost anything else in this short chapter. Those in whom greed, hate, and ignorance have faded away “have crossed the ocean so hard to cross,” “slipped their chains, given up death, and have no attachments,” “given up suffering, so there are no more future lives.” The final line calls this person someone who “cannot be defined,” who has “confounded the King of Death” — picking up the same idea of evading any further reckoning seen at the close of Periods, several suttas earlier.
A vivid, dense stanza pair closes the chapter
Structurally, this is one of the most elaborate discourses in the ten covered here: two full verse stanzas, eight lines in total, built almost entirely around one extended image rather than a simple restatement of the prose. As the closing discourse of Chapter Two — a chapter that opened with the plain list of “three eyes” in Iti 61 — it ends on its most imagistically ambitious note.
The form itself
As throughout this collection, Greed (2nd) opens with “This was said by the Buddha, the Perfected One: that is what I heard,” states its teaching in prose, restates and extends it across two verse stanzas, and closes with a near-mirror of the opening line. Beyond the specific mention of monks and nuns, no place or occasion is named — nothing narrative frames it further.
Key terms
The text
§1This was said by the Buddha, the Perfected One: that is what I heard.
The teaching
§2a“Whoever has not given up greed, hate, and delusion is said to have not crossed over the ocean with its waves and whirlpools, its saltwater crocodiles and monsters.
§2bWhoever has given up greed, hate, and delusion is said to have crossed over the ocean with its waves and whirlpools, its saltwater crocodiles and monsters. Crossed over and gone to the far shore, that brahmin stands on solid ground.” The Buddha spoke this matter. On this it is said:
The verse
§3“Those in whom greed, hate, and ignorance have faded away, have crossed the ocean so hard to cross, with its saltwater crocodiles and monsters, its waves and dangers.
§4They’ve slipped their chains, given up death, and have no attachments. They’ve given up suffering, so there are no more future lives. They’ve disappeared and cannot be defined; they’ve confounded the King of Death, I say.”
§5This too is a matter that was spoken by the Blessed One: that is what I heard.
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