From This Shore to That Shore: A Reflection on a Buddhist Image 從此岸到彼岸
- Aug 6
- 2 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
I grew up with the Buddhist image of this shore and that shore — 此岸, the shore of suffering and confusion, and 彼岸, the far shore of liberation. For a long time, it was only a concept to me. I understood it, at first, as a destination — a place I had to reach through effort, distance, and time.
Later, that understanding shifted. This shore and that shore became less about a fixed place and more about a process — the crossing itself. Practice was the boat. Discipline, attention, and patience were the current I had to move through. I thought liberation was something earned through the work of getting from here to there.
It wasn't until more recently that something quieter settled in — a recognition this poem tries to hold rather than explain.
The Shore that Still Knows You
The hardest part
is not the open sea
but that first band of water
where the shore still reaches for you,
where the waves
still know your ways.
So it is when you sit,
when you eat,
when you walk,
and the shore calls you
by the self
you thought you'd left behind.
But perhaps the way through
is not force.
Perhaps it is to stay,
with a quiet curiosity,
still enough to watch
what rises, what pulls,
what asks you
to choose the self you were
over the one
still waiting to be lived.
Maybe you now see
there's no need
to push back,
no need to ride along,
only to watch
how the mind makes its tides,
how habit speaks
in the voice of home.
Then this curiosity is no longer
a way of watching the shore,
but a seeing of the mind's old tendencies,
of how much they have cost you —
and what is clearly seen
is finally let go,
and little by little,
the shore loses its claim on you,
until, at last,
the shore itself
becomes the sacred ground
you thought
you had to leave it
to find.
