“Bhikkhus, the uninstructed worldling speaks of ‘the ocean, the ocean.’ But that is not the ocean in the Noble One’s Discipline; that is only a great mass of water, a great body of water.

“There are, bhikkhus, forms cognizable by the eye that are desirable, lovely, agreeable, pleasing, sensually enticing, tantalizing. This is called the ocean in the Noble One’s Discipline. Here this world with its devas, Mara, and Brahma, this generation with its ascetics and brahmins, its devas and humans, for the most part is submerged, become like a tangled skein, like a knotted ball of thread, like matted reeds and rushes, and cannot pass beyond the plane of misery, the bad destinations, the nether world, saṃsara.

“There are sounds cognizable by the ear … mental phenomena cognizable by the mind that are desirable, lovely, agreeable, pleasing, sensually enticing, tantalizing. Here this world with its devas, Mara, and Brahma, this generation with its ascetics and brahmins, its devas and humans, for the most part is submerged, become like a tangled skein, like a knotted ball of thread, like matted reeds and rushes, and cannot pass beyond the plane of misery, the bad destinations, the nether world, saṃsara.

“One who has expunged lust and hate
Along with the taint of ignorance,
Has crossed this ocean so hard to cross
With its dangers of sharks, demons, waves.

“The tie-surmounter, death-forsaker, without acquisitions,
Has abandoned suffering for no renewed existence.
Passed away, he cannot be measured, I say:
He has bewildered the King of Death.”