Transcendence of Nirvāṇa and Arahant’s Socio-ethics : With Special Reference to the Parable of the Raft

Some scholars and thinkers have argued that the attainment of nirvāṇa involves the transcendence of socio-ethics. One of the key factors for the formation of that idea is the image of transcendence relevant to the Buddhist concept of nirvāṇa. This image often appears as a metaphor of crossing a stream on a raft or boat in the Early Buddhist texts. In the usual metaphor of crossing the flood, near shore symbolizes the saṃsāric world and far shore nirvāṇa. This image gives the impression that once nirvāṇa is attained, socio-ethics must also be ultimately transcended. It is for this reason that the parable of the raft in the Alagaddūpama-sutta and its Chinese parallel has been often misunderstood. The world (loka) in Early Buddhism is the empirical world composed of the five aggregates (pañcakkhandhā), that is the six internal bases (cha-ajjhattikāyatanāni) and the six external bases (cha-bāhirāyatanāni). In the same light, an arhat is one who has fully realized non-self (anattā) by not clinging to the empirical world as self or mine. Therefore, the image of transcendence relevant to nirvāṇa is not go beyond socio-ethics but the realization of non-self. In a number of discourse, the Buddha states that the near shore is the wrong path, and the far shore is the Noble Eightfold Path, a set of practical guidelines designed to enhance ethical and mental development. From this perspective, we can safely conclude that the Buddha's statement in the parable of the raft to abandon the dharma cannot be interpreted as going beyond ethics, and that the claim by some that an Arahant goes beyond ethics is not valid.