Revisiting the Parable of the Raft

Episode 118 of the Secular Buddhism Podcast

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Secular Buddhism podcast. This is episode number 118. I'm your host, Noah Rasheta, and today I'm going to revisit the Parable of the Raft.

As always, keep in mind: you don't need to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist. You can use it to learn to be a better whatever you already are.

The Zen Kōan: The Moon Cannot Be Stolen

Before jumping into the podcast episode, I'd like to talk about the Zen kōan that I shared in the last episode: "The Moon Cannot Be Stolen."

The kōan goes like this. Ryōkan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening, a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing to steal. Ryōkan returned and caught him. "You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler, "and you should not return empty-handed. Please, take my clothes as a gift."

The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away. Ryōkan sat naked watching the moon. "Poor fellow," he mused, "I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon."

When I first heard this kōan, I thought it was a little funny and ironic—especially that last sentence. Here's Ryōkan, sitting there naked watching the moon, saying, "I wish I could give him this beautiful moon," and knowing that in our modern form of English, in a very real way, he was already doing exactly that. There's a kind of funny irony just with the evolution of language and the meaning of words. I couldn't help but chuckle the first time I heard it.

Community Responses

I wanted to talk about this a little bit more. I post these kōans in our Patreon group, and I really enjoy hearing the discussions that come out of that—the thoughts and reflections that listeners share. I want to share a couple of these responses because I think they hit on what this kōan means.

The first comes from Bob. Here's what he shared:

"To me, Ryōkan is saying, 'I wish this man could appreciate what he already has. I wish I could give him that appreciation.' This interpretation reminds me of what David Steindl-Rast said: you can't be happy without gratitude. If the thief appreciated the moon, if he had gratitude for the moon, then he would be happy. Without that gratitude, he cannot be happy. He wasn't even grateful when Ryōkan gave him his clothes—instead, he was bewildered and just slunk away. Happy people do not slink away. The man cannot be happy until he has gratitude. He won't enjoy anything until he learns to be grateful for what he already has around him, like the beauty of the moon."

Thank you, Bob, for sharing that. I agree with this completely. A lot of what this kōan teaches us is the appreciation that we have for things that cannot be given to us.

Imray also shared something really insightful:

"The Zen master has realized that materialistic things on their own are not what make us content. Instead, it is the gratitude we feel and the compassion we feel for others. He gives his clothes to the thief, but he knows that this alone will not help the thief become free from suffering. The Zen master, however, is free from suffering. He is able to find peace in the situation he finds himself in and skillfully accepts it as it is. This also includes being grateful for things which seem mundane, such as the beautiful moon. Instead of fighting the thief, which would likely lead to more suffering on both sides, he finds a skillful alternative. Not only does acting compassionately contribute to the Zen master's own balanced mental state, it might also help the thief to rethink his unskillful practice of stealing."

Thank you, Imray, for sharing your thoughts. I really like this expansion. It reminds me of the story of Les Misérables, where Jean Valjean goes to steal the possessions of the priest at the church where he's staying. When the police catch Jean Valjean and bring him back, the priest acts skillfully in that moment. Instead of saying, "Yes, he stole my stuff," the priest responds, "No, you forgot. You forgot these other things that I meant for you to have," and he gives Jean Valjean more possessions.

Like in the Ryōkan kōan, Jean Valjean takes those things and slunks away, bewildered. But if you know the story, that act of compassion becomes the catalyst for a major shift in Jean Valjean's way of living. We all know the rest of the story from that moment forward.

I think that's what Imray is alluding to here—that the Zen master is perhaps acting skillfully in a way that sets in motion a new way of being for the thief. We don't know the rest of the story, and that's actually not the point. Whether this person slunk away and changed their life or continued stealing doesn't matter. What really stands out to me is this: in spite of the circumstances that just unfolded—you've literally just been robbed—there is complete contentment and inner peace with Ryōkan. Why? Because Ryōkan understands something much more profound than what the thief understands.

This reminds me of the story of Angulimala, the serial killer who was stopped in his tracks by the Buddha. Angulimala was shocked because the Buddha wasn't scared or running from him. The Buddha replied, "I stopped running long ago. It's you that hasn't stopped running."

That interaction did something really profound to Angulimala. He eventually changed his ways and became a monk. But it all started with that one moment where he was bewildered—just like the thief in Ryōkan's story. The thief thought, "I came to rob from you, and instead, you're giving me things."

To me, this is because Ryōkan knows something crucial: he cannot give away the moon in the same way that he cannot give away his inner peace. His inner peace is something he has come to attain, but he can't give it away. Yet without having to give it away directly, he has the ability to be skillful in that moment—to act in a way that may spark in this thief, later on, the inner quest to find that same sense of peace that he observed in Ryōkan.

Again, the point of the story isn't what happens next. The point is what happened in that moment, and Ryōkan was able to see and understand something that the thief wasn't. To me, that's a really profound teaching.

It makes me want to look at the things in my life that I see and appreciate—the things that bring me inner peace—and question: are these things I could give away? If someone came to rob me, would I cling to the thing that I think is giving me happiness?

I think about this a lot. What are the things that bring me joy? The material things I think of are my paramotor, my paragliding wing, my cell phone, my computer. These are things I use day-to-day that bring me joy. My computer especially, because it's my line of work and helps me make money—money I can use to do things that bring joy to myself and to my family.

But if someone came to steal it, I like to think that I've been skillful enough to understand that it's not the computer itself that brings me happiness. While it would be inconvenient, I really don't need it. I could always find another way. To some degree, I might be able to react like Ryōkan and say, "Okay, take this. I wish I could give you what you're really after"—because here's the truth: whatever the thief is after, that thing they think they're getting isn't going to give them what they really want.

To me, that's what Ryōkan was able to see. It's what the Buddha was able to see with Angulimala. The thing you think you're going to get—whether it's someone's life, my computer, my paragliding wing, or whatever you're trying to take—that thing you think you're going to gain won't actually satisfy you. I see that, but you don't. If I can see that and understand it, then I don't have a strong attachment to what's happening right now. You can take this because I realize you're not going to get what you think you're getting out of it.

That, to me, is what this kōan is conveying. The moon cannot be stolen in the same way that my inner peace cannot be taken from me. That's a really profound understanding.

Hopefully, that was a fun exploration of this kōan for you. Thank you to everyone who participated in the discussion on Patreon, and to those of you who listen to the podcast regularly, I hope this was a beneficial Zen kōan to explore.

The Parable of the Raft

Now I want to jump into the main podcast episode: revisiting the Parable of the Raft.

I originally spoke about this parable in episode 11, so it's been a long time—over a hundred episodes ago. I believe that was back in 2016. I thought it would be fun to revisit it because this Parable of the Raft has been very meaningful and profound for me in my own life. I know it has been for several of you who've listened to the podcast too, because you've emailed me and told me how meaningful that teaching was—that one concept, that one idea. So I thought it would be fun to revisit this one again.

Nepal and the Concept of Tools

The first spark of this revisit came while I was in Nepal last month. Something that really stood out to me was this concept of tools. The Parable of the Raft is fundamentally about means versus ends—tools versus what the tools give us.

While we were hiking in Nepal, I couldn't help but notice that many of us were dressed in Columbia or North Face or whatever brand of outdoor clothing because that's what you're supposed to wear when you're hiking in Nepal. We had our walking sticks and our poles and our hiking boots from the right brand. We had the clothes and the tents we were sleeping in—everything. It kind of reminded me of the concept of "ski bunnies."

If you're not familiar with this term, I live in a ski community, and we observe what we call ski bunnies. These are people who show up to ski, often for the very first time. They went to the store and bought all their ski supplies—the proper brand of jacket, ski boots, ski pants, gloves, and expensive ski goggles. Everything they thought they needed to go skiing. They usually stand out because they're equipped to the tee with the right gear, but they also don't know how to ski. That's why we call them ski bunnies. It's a term—kind of derogatory, but real—to point out the ones who are dressed up for it but don't really know what they're doing.

I had this thought while we were in Nepal: in a way, we were all like ski bunnies. We were all wearing the right gear to make this trek easier. Then you look around at the Sherpas, and they're carrying 5 to 10 times the weight that we are. They're not wearing any brand-name anything. They're wearing ragged clothes they've worn year after year. Often you'd see them wearing flip-flops from knockoff brands, almost falling apart from age. Meanwhile, we're wearing boots and wool socks and all the things we thought we needed.

And then they prove to you that you don't need all that. You can wear flip-flops that are barely holding together, and they're doing the hike significantly faster than we are while carrying significantly more weight. That really stood out to me.

Now, this isn't to say that wearing brand-name gear is wrong. What this highlighted to me was this: we need these tools because we don't have the experience that they have. We're not capable of doing this in flip-flops. That was the key thought. It wasn't about thinking, "Oh, we should not wear brand-name clothing." That wasn't it at all.

This thought then shifted into how we practice Buddhism. It's like the concept of ski bunnies applied to Buddhist practice—or you could call them "Buddhist bunnies." Practitioners who say, "I'm ready to jump into this. I've got my fancy meditation cushion, I just bought my mala beads, I'm wearing my necklace, I bought this fancy incense holder. I've got my whole setup of tools to help me be more mindful." And then we come to find out that it's still not easy to be mindful.

Because the tools themselves are just tools. They're the means, not the ends. Just like buying the nicest skis and boots and pants and jacket aren't going to make you any better at skiing. If you're really good at skiing, you can do it with whatever gear you happen to have. Going back to Nepal, when you hike the trail day in and day out for your whole life, you can do it with whatever you've got on. You don't need the fancy boots. You don't need the walking sticks. You don't need anything. You just do it because that's what you know how to do.

I loved thinking about this in terms of Buddhism. The master is the one who doesn't need any of it—doesn't need the tools, doesn't need the bracelet, doesn't need the incense, doesn't need the little Buddhist statue at home. Doesn't need any of it.

Now, that's not to say, "Okay, so I'm going to throw all my stuff away." That's not the point. The point is recognizing: do I see these things as tools, or am I clinging to them? To me, this speaks 100 percent to the teaching that the Buddha gave in the Parable of the Raft. That's why I wanted to revisit it in this new context I've come to see it after my experience in Nepal.

The Raft Simile

I want to share the raft simile. This comes from the Alagaddūpama Sutta, which is from the Majjhima Nikāya. The translations for these are available online, and I'm taking this one from dhammatalks.org. I'll put the link in the description and on the website when I publish this. This comes from MN 22, which stands for Majjhima Nikāya 22. I'm giving you this background so that some of you who want to dig into it can read it from the actual source. This is the raft simile, quoted word for word from the translation of Access to Insight:

"Monks, I will teach you the Dhamma compared to a raft, for the purpose of crossing over, not for the purpose of holding on to. Listen and pay close attention. I will speak."

The monks respond: "As you say, Lord."

The Buddha continues:

"Suppose a man were traveling along a path. He would see a great expanse of water with the near shore dubious and risky, the further shore secure and free from risk, but with neither a ferry boat nor a bridge going from this shore to the other. The thought would occur to him, 'Here is this great expanse of water with the near shore dubious and risky and further shore secure and free from risk, but with neither a ferryboat nor a bridge. What if I were to gather grass, twigs, branches, and leaves and, having bound them together, make a raft to cross over to safety on the other shore in dependence on the raft, making an effort with my hands and feet?'

"Then the man, having gathered grass, twigs, branches, and leaves, having bound them together to make a raft, would cross over to safety on the other shore in dependence on the raft, making an effort with his hands and feet. Having crossed over to the further shore, he might think, 'How useful this raft has been to me, for it was in dependence on this raft that, making an effort with my hands and feet, I have crossed over to safety on the further shore. Why don't I, having hoisted it on my head or carrying it on my back, go wherever I like?'

"What do you think, monks? Would the man, doing that, be doing what should be done with the raft?"

The monks respond: "No, Lord."

"And what should the man do in order to be doing what should be done with the raft? There is the case where the man, having crossed over, thinks, 'How useful this raft has been to me, for it was in dependence on this raft, making an effort with my hands and feet, I have crossed over to safety on the further shore. Why don't I, having dragged it on the land or sinking it in the water, go wherever I like?'

"In doing this, he would be doing what should be done with the raft. In the same way, monks, I have taught the Dhamma compared to a raft, for the purpose of crossing over, not for the purpose of holding on to. Understanding Dhamma as taught, compared to a raft, you should let go even of Dhammas—to say nothing of non-Dhammas."

Understanding the Teaching

The gist of this parable, for me, is as follows. A person comes to a large body of water and figures out how to get to the other side. They put in the energy and effort of building their own raft. Once they build it, they use it to stay afloat, making themselves capable of crossing over to reach the other side. Once that person reaches the other side, a dilemma is presented: should they carry it with them, or should they leave it behind?

As the Buddha concludes: "In the same way, monks, I have taught the Dhamma compared to a raft, for the purpose of crossing over, not for the purpose of holding on to." This means the Dhamma—the teachings—should be let go. I love that in the original translation, he says letting go of Dhammas. These are the sacred teachings and truths. He goes on to say, "To say nothing of non-Dhammas"—meaning even the things that aren't sacred teachings and truths. So if your deepest-held views and convictions are meant to be tools to get you across—not things to cling to—what does that say about things that aren't even your deeply-held truths? Things like the sports teams you attach to or the political views you adhere to. That's how I view it.

I think it's a simple distinction between the goal and the means. The goal is to get across. The goal is to cross over. The means for doing so is the raft. Once you get across the river, there's no point in carrying that raft along with you.

In Buddhism, this distinction is very important because there can be a multitude of means. The raft is just one. There could have been other ways to get across. You could have built a bridge, created floating shoes, flown a paraglider over, or done any number of things. But while the goal was to cross over, all of those means end up being the same—they're just means. In the moment you don't need them, they're not meant to be clung to and carried on with.

I think in Buddhist practice, very often, we confuse those two things. We keep chasing after the means while forgetting what the goal was. I see practitioners all the time arguing about which school of Buddhism is right, what the proper way to interpret this teaching is, whether secular Buddhism is better than classical Buddhism or vice versa. It goes on and on.

I think one of the things we can extract from this parable is a cautionary tale against clinging to one view. If you have a view, fine. But don't cling to it. Your view might change. That's where we often experience the discomfort and suffering that arises. The thing that worked for me as a view at one stage of my life—circumstances shift, and here I am clinging to that view, and now it's causing me pain and discomfort. It's like me trying to carry a heavy raft on my back while climbing a mountain. Climbing the mountain is the new goal, not crossing the river, and the tool that worked for crossing the river doesn't work well as a tool for climbing the mountain.

That, to me, is the essence of this teaching. What am I doing right now? What stage am I in my life? What tools are useful to me for what I'm doing right now, and how willing am I to let go of those tools the moment I no longer need them?

The Paradox of Practice

I think this can get really complicated really quickly because in Buddhism, we're trying to reach a stage of not wanting. This is like saying reaching a point where there is no goal. Then you have to ask: well, what is the raft? What is the river? What is the goal?

If you ponder this distinction between the goal and the means to achieving the goal, you can ask yourself another question. With the Buddha having achieved enlightenment, why did he continue to meditate for the next 45 years after having achieved enlightenment? To me, that's like saying, "Well, the point of the practice is practicing. The point of the practice isn't to achieve enlightenment." Because if that were the case, then what's the point of continuing to practice?

I like thinking about this in terms of playing a musical instrument. My son plays the cello. I used to play the violin. A lot of people play musical instruments. You can ask yourself, "Why do I continue to practice? I already know how to play it." Well, the reason you continue to practice is because the goal was to play music. The goal wasn't to make it to the first seat in my orchestra. That may have been the goal at one point, but once I achieved that goal, why would I keep playing? Well, because there's another goal, and then there's another goal, and at some point, I realized there is no goal. All I'm trying to do is play music.

I guess you could say that playing music is the goal, but it's not a goal at that point. It's just what I do because it's what I do. That's something fun to think about in terms of the Parable of the Raft.

Tools in Buddhist Practice

In Buddhism, there are a lot of tools that we have. I was thinking about this again, correlating the walking sticks, the certain brand of shirts we were wearing, the hiking boots. These are all tools for hiking. I'm not suggesting that next time I go to Nepal, I won't take any of my fancy gear. That's not what I'm saying. I need those boots. I can't do it in flip-flops, so I'm going to do it wearing boots. It's fine as long as I understand these are just tools.

Where this becomes a deeper concept is how I approach practicing Buddhism. There are a lot of tools in Buddhism: wearing mala beads, lighting incense, meditating on a cushion, doing chanting, having flowers. The lotus flower is highly symbolic in Buddhism. Meditation itself. These are all tools. For me, it was helpful to transition that thought: what are these things that I encounter in my Buddhist practice?

Some of them would kind of turn me off because I thought, "Ah, I don't like this thing. This screams of religion or it screams of worshiping or something foreign to what I believe." But when I realized they're all just tools, there's a reason why the tool is there—but you don't need the tool. That's when a cool shift happened.

I wear mala beads from time to time. I wear them now, and I like them, but I think the reason I like them is because they don't mean anything to me in that reverent, sacred sense. To me, they're a tool. I've used them in meditation the way you're taught to use them. I've tried that. Then I found my own way to continue using them, but I see them as a tool.

If someone comes into my house and sees a painting of the Buddha on the wall, to me that's just a tool. There's no way it could be denigrated because I don't hold it as anything other than a tool. It's the same way that Ryōkan viewed his possessions—his clothes, for example. Someone comes to steal them, and you can have them. I'll give them to you. I'm not going to feel attached to them because I can sit here naked watching the moon the same way Ryōkan did and say, "I wish I could give you this beautiful moon."

I'm trying to correlate all of these concepts and ideas into one single frame of thought: the raft. What are the rafts in your life? I would say the raft is every single tool, whether it's the meditation cushion you sit on or the deeply-held conviction you have about some view or belief. They're still just tools. In the same way that even our thoughts and words are just tools. Language is a tool.

Alan Watts said: "We seldom realize, for example, that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own, for we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent but which were given to us by our society."

To me, that's a really profound view. It's like understanding that even my deepest thoughts, views, and ideas are a lot like my clothes. Someone could come and say, "I'm taking these," and I'd say, "Sure, take them, I'll give them to you." Because the naked me—the me that doesn't have my thoughts or my language or my words or the pictures in my head—then what's there? That's a fascinating mental exploration. What's really there?

I think it's really hard to notice something that can't be described by the words we already have available to us. And yet that's what we're trying to do in this practice. We're trying to notice and see: "What will you notice if you didn't even know the word notice?" The words are only tools. That thing that's there—that thing we can't even think about without the words to think about—it's still there, even if the tools are not there.

That's a fun exploration, a lot like the moon. The moon is there, ready to be appreciated, whether or not I have clothing on, whether or not I have possessions, whether or not I'm being robbed. It's just there.

Closing Thoughts

That's what I wanted to share with you. That's a fun mental exploration of revisiting the Parable of the Raft.

Thank you for listening and for being a part of this journey with me. As always, if you want to support the work I'm doing with the podcast, consider becoming a Patreon member and joining the online community where we discuss the kōans, podcast episodes, and more. You can learn about all of that by visiting secularbuddhism.com.

If you enjoyed this podcast episode, feel free to share it with others, write a review, or give it a rating in your podcast app. That's all I have for now, but as always, I look forward to recording another podcast episode soon.

Zen Kōan: No Water, No Moon

Before I go, here is your Zen kōan to work with this week. This one is called "No Water, No Moon."

When the nun Chiyono studied Zen under Bukko of Engaku, she was unable to attain the fruits of meditation for a long time. At last, one moonlit night, she was carrying water in an old pail bound with bamboo. The bamboo broke, and the bottom fell out of the pail. At that moment, Chiyono was set free.

In commemoration, she wrote a poem:

In this way and that, I tried to save the old pail. Since the bamboo strip was weakening and about to break. Until, at last, the bottom fell out. No more water in the pail. No more moon in the water.

Thanks again. Until next time.

For more about the Secular Buddhism podcast and Noah Rasheta's work, visit SecularBuddhism.com