by Tang Huyen

There is no true method apart from expedient means — the best that a method (dharma, fa) can be is an expedient means. It is at best a raft to carry you across the river; it is not an end in itself.

The Buddha standardly distinguishes between the means and the end. He standardly says
of the arhat that "he in the present things (lit. the seen things) arrives at the ultimate"
(nistham gacchati, Pali nittham gacchati at MN, I, 181 [27], 319 [47], MA, 186, 731c20),
where nistha/nittha is something like Greek telos.

In the vicinity where he famously says: "I shall teach you that the Law is comparable to a
raft, it is meant for crossing over, not for holding on to [afterward] (Pali kullupamam vo
bhikkhave dhammam desissami nittharanatthaya no gahanatthaya)", he also says: "one leans
on the raft to cross over the river, it is not the end of the way" (Sanskrit kolam asritya
nadim uttaran na marga-nistho bhavati); MA, 200, 764b-c, MN, I, 135 (22).

"Monks! Joy (piti) arises in a monk who, having extinguished the cankers (khina-asava),
reflects on the mind liberated from desire, reflects on the mind liberated from hatred,
reflects on the mind liberated from delusion. (Ya kho bhikkhave khinavasassa bhikkhuno
raga-cittam vimuttam paccavekkhato, dosa-cittam vimuttam paccavekkhato, moha-cittam
vimuttam paccavekkhato uppajjati piti)." SN, IV, 236 (36, 29).

There is no true method apart from expedient means, that the best that a method (dharma, fa)
can be is an expedient means. It is at best a raft to carry you across the river, it is not
an end in itself, but what it leads you to (metaphorically called the other shore) is the end,
though such an end should not be attached to, and if it is attached to, it is not the end —
you haven't reached the end.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on January 29, 2005, in reply to a question on expedient means (upāya). Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

Tang Huyen here fills in the canonical scaffold behind the raft metaphor, which circulates in Buddhist discourse mostly as a slogan. The Pali and Sanskrit citations (MA 200, MN I.135, SN IV.236) ground the metaphor in specific textual locations and supply the technical term: nistha/nittha, "the ultimate," that which the arhat arrives at in the seen things — used by the Buddha in the same discourses where he describes the Dharma as a raft for crossing, not for grasping. The joy of the liberated mind (piti) at SN IV.236 supplies the experiential correlate of arrival. The synthesis: the raft metaphor is not rhetorical modesty — it is a precise structural claim about the relationship between method and end, built into the canon from the start.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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