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Buddhism

Thag 1:88 · Ajjuna

Thai temple painting: Prince Vessantara gives away the white elephant
Vessantara Jātaka, Chapter 2 (Himavanta Forest) · Thai, Rattanakosin, c. 1850–1870 · Walters Art Museum

Able was I

to raise myself from water

to dry land.1

Swept along by the great flood,

I penetrated

the truths.2

Notes

1. A standard image for the practice is that of making one’s way across a river from its dangerous near shore to the safety of the further shore. For other uses of this image, see SN 35:197, AN 4:5, AN 7:15, and Sn 5.

2. The four noble truths.


Translated by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu. © 2014 / rev. 2017 Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu — released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 licence, for free distribution only. Source: dhammatalks.org (Metta Forest Monastery).

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