(The Buddha // Salayatanavagga, Pali Canon)
O wise ones, there are forms cognizable by the senses 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, Māra, and Brahmā, this generation with it’s spiritual wanderers, devas and humans,
for the most part is submerged, become like tangled hair, 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, samsāra. One who has expunged lust and hate, and all ignorance Has crossed this ocean so hard to cross, With it’s dangers of sharks, demons, waves. The knowledge-master who has lived the holy life, Reached the world’s end, is called one “gone beyond.” The tie-surmounter, death-forsaker, without aquisitions, This one has abandoned suffering for no renewed existance. Passed away, and immeasurable, I say: This one has bewildered the King of Death.