In everyday speech and literature, we often hear of "this shore" (此岸) and "the far shore" (彼岸). People habitually take "this shore" to mean the suffering of ordinary life, the clamor of the mundane world, and imagine "the far shore" as some distant, sacred, post-liberation utopia.
But in the early Buddhist canon's core text, the *Saṃyuktāgama* (《杂阿含经》), "this shore" is not a physical location, nor is it a vague reference to "a miserable state of life." The Buddha gave it an extremely precise—even chilling—definition: "This shore is the six sense bases" (此岸者，谓六入处).
To understand "this shore," we must return to this rigorous system of classical Dharma and see how it reveals the actual reality of our daily existence, moment by moment.
What This Concept Is Saying
In the *Saṃyuktāgama*, "this shore" (Sanskrit *apāra*) and "the far shore" form a pair of central metaphors running through the path of liberation. The sūtra defines and demarcates "this shore" at multiple levels:
1. The Classical Definition by Sense Base and Object: The Six Internal Sense Bases
In the famous teaching at the banks of the Ganges, the Buddha states plainly: "This shore is the six sense bases; the far shore is the six external sense bases" (此岸者，谓六入处；彼岸者，谓六外入处). * This shore (the six internal sense bases): refers to our six internal sensory subjects—eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind. * The far shore (the six external sense bases): refers to the six external objective domains—form (visual objects), sound, smell, taste, touch, and mental objects (dharmas).
Here, one must absolutely not narrow the "six internal sense bases" down to the physical body. They constitute the entire sensory and mental mechanism by which we receive information and generate subjective experience. As long as you still depend on seeing with the eye, hearing with the ear, and thinking with the mind to "grasp" the world, and take this sensory subject to be "I," you are on "this shore."
2. The Definition by Action and View: The Ten Unwholesome Deeds and Wrong Views
When the Buddha answered the brahmin Jānusoṇi, he extended "this shore" to the level of behavior and cognition: whatever is "killing living beings" up to "wrong view"—the ten unwholesome deeds and inverted views—is collectively called "this shore"; while "not killing" up to "right view"—the ten wholesome deeds and right views—is called "the far shore."
Here, "this shore" represents the chaotic state driven by unwholesome karma and mistaken cognition.
3. The Living Reality of Beings on This Shore: Wandering and Racing About
The sūtra uses highly vivid verses to depict the ordinary state of the world: "All the various worlds, wandering about, roam on this shore" (一切诸世间，徘徊游此岸), "All classes of living beings, racing and running, traverse this shore" (一切众生类，駈驰走此岸).
Under the dominion of the sensory subject (the six internal sense bases) and of unwholesome deeds and wrong views, beings rush about blindly like headless flies, revolving without cease, entirely unaware that they are trapped on the shore. Those who can truly cross over this shore are called in the sūtra "rare among people, those who can cross to the far shore" (希有诸人民，能度于彼岸).
4. The Practical Path Beyond This Shore: Not Clinging to Either Shore and the "End of the World"
The Buddha used the simile of a great tree drifting downstream in the Ganges: if a great tree can "not cling to this shore, not cling to the far shore, not sink to the bottom, not get stuck on a sandbar, not enter a whirlpool, not be taken by people, not be taken by non-humans, and not rot" (不着此岸，不着彼岸，不沈水底，不阂洲渚，不入洄澓，人亦不取，非人不取，又不腐败), it will flow smoothly into the sea. * Not clinging to this shore: not grasping at the six internal sense bases (the sensory subject). * Not clinging to the far shore: not grasping at the six external sense bases (external objects—including even the attachment to a state of purity achieved by "being free of the six sense objects").
The Buddha further points out that transcending "this shore" does not require physically running to the edge of the material universe; rather, one must "with right wisdom truly understand, with awakened intelligence reach the end of the world" (正智能谛了，觉慧达世间) to evenly and awakenedly know the "end of the world" (世界边). If one can achieve "not [being] there, nor is that [being] here, nor in between the two" (非于彼，彼亦复非此，亦非两中间)—not falling into either end of the subject-object dichotomy—that is attaining the limit of suffering (苦边).
A Walkthrough in Daily Life
So that the classical definition does not become an empty label, let us map the operation of "this shore" strictly onto a scene most familiar to contemporary people—"scrolling through your phone late at night":
1. The six internal sense bases (this shore) activate: In the dead of night, your "eye sense base" (eyes) looks at the screen, your "body sense base" (fingers) swipes, your "mind sense base" (brain/mind) receives information. You feel exhausted, yet you have a strong intuition: "It is I who am watching, it is I who am anxious; this is my unique feeling." * Where people most often mis-map it: People think "this shore" is the phone, or the miserable overtime life. Wrong. The phone is an external sense base (form/mental object). The real "this shore" is your sensory subject (the six internal sense bases)—that which is clinging desperately to sensory experience, mistaking the false for the real.
2. Wrong views and racing about (wandering on this shore): The algorithm pushes posts at you showing peers making a million a year, buying houses and cars. Your "mind sense base" produces comparison; anxiety and envy arise within. At this moment, "wrong view" rises silently—you think external objective conditions can make you feel better; you think just one more scroll will find the antidote. You cannot stop; you switch from one app to another. * Mapping to the classical canon: This is precisely what the sūtra calls "racing and running, traversing this shore" (駈驰走此岸). You are driven by the delusion of the six internal sense bases, blindly sprinting through the mire of sensory reaction.
3. Double clinging (clinging to this shore and to the far shore): * Clinging to this shore: You frantically scroll short videos craving stimulation, deeply sunk in the instant gratification of eyes and brain. * Clinging to the far shore: Suddenly seized by guilt, you turn off the phone, force yourself to "think of nothing," even hate your eyes and the phone, single-mindedly pursuing an ideal state of absolute calm, free of all noise. * What the Dharma points out: The former is "clinging to this shore" (grasping at the six internal sense bases and sensory stimulation); the latter is "clinging to the far shore" (grasping at separation from the six external sense bases or at a state of purity). The Buddha said that as long as you are still being pulled between the two ends of "subject (I)" and "object (circumstances/state of purity)," you are still wandering in the great river, not yet flowing toward the ocean of nirvāṇa.
Why Contemporary People Need It
Contemporary life is enveloped by highly advanced "sensory technology." We are wrapped in the six external sense bases meticulously engineered by algorithms (videos, sounds, visual stimuli), while our six internal sense bases (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind) are overloaded and overstimulated without limit.
1. Disarming the poisoning of the "attention economy": The modern business model is essentially a fight to capture your "six internal sense bases." If you do not understand that "this shore is the six sense bases," you will forever think "this news story made me angry," "that product made me happy." The Dharma tells you: suffering is not given by external circumstances; rather, your six internal sense bases, lacking right knowing and seeing, generate defilement and bondage toward external objects.
2. Breaking the illusion of "escapism": Modern people desperately crave "the far shore"—changing jobs, retreating to Yunnan, quitting work for a sabbatical, even pursuing some kind of mind-body-spirit emptying. But if your six internal sense bases (your cognitive habits, neural circuits, the pattern of clinging to "self") have not changed, you have merely moved "this shore" to a tropical island. As long as the six internal sense bases are still driven by ignorance, wherever you go, that is this shore.
3. Providing a non-dualistic path of liberation: "Not clinging to this shore, not clinging to the far shore" offers a supremely high life-wisdom. It does not tell you to sever the senses (that would be "dead-tree Chan"), nor does it tell you to indulge desire. It tells you to be like that great tree flowing downstream in the Ganges: the senses operate normally (the eye sees forms, the ear hears sounds), but the mind does not get stuck in the sensory subject (not clinging to this shore), nor does it get stuck in external circumstances or in attachment to purity (not clinging to the far shore).
Common Misreadings and Clarifications
* Misreading One: "This shore" refers to the physical earth we live on; "the far shore" refers to heaven or a post-mortem nirvāṇa pure land. * Clarification: In the early *Saṃyuktāgama*, "this shore" and "the far shore" are not geographical concepts but correlative dharmas. This shore is the six internal sense bases (the sensory subject); the far shore is the six external sense bases (objective domains). "Crossing to the far shore" does not mean flying to another space in the physical body; it means no longer being bound by the internal and external six sense bases, attaining an awakened state.
* Misreading Two: Since the six internal sense bases are "this shore," can we reach the far shore by "turning off" or destroying the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind? * Clarification: The six sense bases are the natural mechanism of physiological and psychological functioning. The Buddha never told anyone to gouge out their eyes or stop thinking. What the sūtra says is that "not knowing and seeing the six sense bases as they truly are... giving rise to defilement and clinging" is the root of suffering. The key of practice is "knowing and seeing as they truly are" that the six sense bases are impermanent and not-self, so that when facing the six sense objects one is "without defilement, without bondage"—not destroying the senses themselves.
* Misreading Three: As long as one does many good deeds (the ten wholesome deeds), one has already left "this shore." * Clarification: Although the sūtra defines the ten unwholesome deeds/wrong views as this shore and the ten wholesome deeds/right views as the far shore, this is only a practical ladder. If one does not understand the not-self nature of the six sense bases, then even in doing good deeds and cultivating concentration, if the clinging arises—"I am cultivating goodness, I am pursuing purity"—one is still "clinging to the far shore." The true "end of suffering" (苦边) is to no longer cling to "this shore, the far shore, or the middle between the two."