Reading guide
The same opening, a different redefinition
Both this discourse and SN 35.228 open with the identical sentence rejecting the ordinary sense of “ocean.” What differs is what replaces it: there, the sense faculties themselves; here, the six objects the faculties encounter — sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, and ideas that are likable, desirable, agreeable, pleasant, sensual, and arousing.
Sunk, tangled, and matted
A single sentence, repeated for both halves of the sixfold list, states that it is here — in this ocean of pleasant objects — that the world with its gods, Māras, and divinities, its ascetics, brahmins, gods, and humans, is for the most part sunk: “tangled like string, knotted like a ball of thread, and matted like rushes and reeds,” unable to escape the places of loss, transmigration itself.
A stock image of entanglement, not unique to this discourse
The same three-part image — tangled string, knotted thread, matted reeds — is a recognizable formula in the wider early-Buddhist corpus for describing how deeply beings are caught in saṃsāra; this reading guide notes the image's own stock character honestly rather than treating its appearance here as unique to this discourse.
A verse naming the crossing by what has faded, not what has been prevailed over
Unlike SN 35.228's closing verse, which named the crossing in terms of currents overcome, this discourse's own closing verse names it by what has faded away first — greed, hate, and ignorance — before describing the one who has crossed as having slipped their chains, given up death, and confounded the King of Death himself.
Key terms
The text
§1“Mendicants, an unlearned ordinary person speaks of the ocean. But that’s not the ocean in the training of the Noble One. That’s just a large body of water, a large sea of water. There are sights known by the eye, which are likable, desirable, agreeable, pleasant, sensual, and arousing. This is called the ocean in the training of the Noble One. And it’s here that this world—with its gods, Māras, and divinities, this population with its ascetics and brahmins, gods and humans—is for the most part sunk. It’s become tangled like string, knotted like a ball of thread, and matted like rushes and reeds, and it doesn’t escape the places of loss, the bad places, the underworld, transmigration.
§2There are sounds … smells … tastes … touches … ideas known by the mind, which are likable, desirable, agreeable, pleasant, sensual, and arousing. This is called the ocean in the training of the Noble One. And it’s here that this world—with its gods, Māras, and divinities, this population with its ascetics and brahmins, gods and humans—is for the most part sunk. It’s become tangled like string, knotted like a ball of thread, and matted like rushes and reeds, and it doesn’t escape the places of loss, the bad places, the underworld, transmigration.
§3Those 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. They’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 measured; and they’ve confounded the King of Death, I say.”
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