Reading guide
This vagga's own most elaborate single image
Where most of this vagga's own similes state their image in one or two sentences, this discourse traces a ship's own multi-stage deterioration — six months in water, then hauled onto dry land, then weathered by wind, sun, and finally rain — before drawing its own comparison to a mendicant's fetters. Confirmed by direct reading as the vagga's own longest and most detailed image.
Key terms
The text
§1“Mendicants, suppose there was a sea-faring ship bound together with ropes. For six months they deteriorated in the water. Then in the cold season it was hauled up on dry land, where the ropes were weathered by wind and sun. When the clouds soaked it with rain, the ropes would readily collapse and rot away. In the same way, when a mendicant develops and cultivates the noble eightfold path their fetters readily collapse and rot away. And how do they develop and cultivate the noble eightfold path so that their fetters readily collapse and rot away? It’s when a mendicant develops right view, right purpose, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right immersion, which rely on seclusion, fading away, and cessation, and ripen as letting go. That’s how they develop and cultivate the noble eightfold path so that their fetters readily collapse and rot away.”
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