“Monks, I shall point out the nearest shore and the farthest shore. Hear this, and thoroughly attend to it in mind. I shall speak.”

“Just so, Venerable One,” the monks assented to the Blessed One.

“What, monks, is the nearest shore; what is the farthest shore?

“Wrong view is the nearest shore; right view is the farthest shore;

“Wrong intention is the nearest shore; right intention is the farthest shore;
wrong speech is the nearest shore; right speech is the farthest shore;
wrong conduct is the nearest shore; right conduct is the farthest shore;
wrong livelihood is the nearest shore; right livelihood is the farthest shore;
wrong effort is the nearest shore; right effort is the farthest shore;
wrong mindfulness is the nearest shore; right mindfulness is the farthest shore;
wrong concentration is the nearest shore; right concentration is the farthest shore;
wrong knowledge is the nearest shore; right knowledge is the farthest shore;
wrong liberation is the nearest shore; right liberation is the farthest shore.

“This, monks, is the nearest shore; this is the farthest shore.

“Amongst humans, very few are they,
those mortals going to the farthest shore;
Rather, the rest of humankind
runs just along this shore.

Those who, indeed, practise in the Dhamma,
in the well-taught Dhamma,
They are mortals who will go beyond
the sway of death, so difficult to escape.

Renouncing the dark qualities,
the wise person should cultivate the bright;
From home, having come to homelessness,
in seclusion, where delight is difficult,

One should wish to feel delight there,
having destroyed sensuality, a person of nothing.
The wise person should purify himself
from the defilements of the mind.

Those with mind rightly well-cultivated
in the qualities of perfect awakening,
Who, in the giving-up of grasping,
without clinging, are delighted,
The brilliant ones, with unconscious influences withered away,
they, in the world, are completely unbound.”