Pay the Ferryman…?

“Don’t Pay the Ferryman” becomes a metaphor for the non‑dual path when read through a Tibetan Buddha Dharma lens.

Below is a clear, Dharma‑infused interpretation that reflects deeper insight into the true nature of phenomena.

🕉️ A Tibetan Buddha Dharma Reading of “Don’t Pay the Ferryman” by Chris de Burgh

1. The Journey Begins: The Mind on the Open Road

The song opens with a lone traveller moving through darkness, uncertainty, and inner turbulence. In Dharma terms, this is samsara — the restless wandering driven by karmic momentum and mistaken perception.

The “map in the mind” is the conceptual mind, endlessly constructing landscapes of fear, hope, memory, and projection.

2. The Ferryman as the Apparent Gatekeeper

In myth, the ferryman is the one who takes you across to the “other side.” In dualistic thinking, there is an “other side” — enlightenment, liberation, awakening — and someone who must take you there.

But in non‑dual Dharma:

There is no separate ferryman
There is no separate traveller
There is no separate shore

The ferryman becomes a symbol of the illusory belief that awakening requires an external transaction — a price, a bargain, a ritual, a saviour, a guarantee.

This is the first twist: The ferryman is the mind’s own projection of duality.

What is required is the correct view a practice method that recognises the two truths.

3. The Voices Saying “Don’t Do It”

These voices can be read as:

Prajñā (wisdom) whispering from the ground of awareness
The intuitive knowing that truth cannot be bought
The reminder that no external agent can deliver liberation

They warn against paying the “price” of clinging to dualistic perception.

4. The Four Maras Hidden in the Imagery

There is insight about the Four Maras. They appear symbolically throughout:

1. The Mara of the Aggregates (Skandha‑Mara)

The traveller’s identity, fear, and urgency — the sense of “I am on a journey” — is the skandhas in motion.

2. The Mara of the Kleshas (Klesha‑Mara)

The storm, the wild dog, the fear, the confusion — emotional turbulence obscuring clarity.

3. The Mara of Death (Mrityu‑Mara)

The ferryman himself, the river, the threshold — all evoke mortality and the illusion of an “end” or “crossing.”

4. The Mara of the Son of the Gods (Devaputra‑Mara)

The ferryman demanding payment now — the subtle egoic voice that says: “You must earn awakening. You must pay. You must prove yourself.”

This is the most deceptive Mara: the spiritual ego.

5. The Non‑Dual Twist: There Is No Other Side

The reading lands in the following. Where are you going ultimately, either continue to revolve uncontrollably in cyclic existence (rebirth) due to attachments in the mind to mere concepts of “I” and “mine” and so forth (and the infallible law of cause, effect and conditions on the relative (conventional) level); or liberating mind in awareness of its true nature (the empty nature of awareness itself).

In ultimate truth:

There is no river to cross
There is no ferryman to pay
There is no price
There is no other side
There is only rigpa / nondual awareness already present

The “fare” is simply recognition — recognising the nature of mind.

Use a method to tame/ train the mind in order to recognise/realise both relative truth and the ultimate nature of reality.

Once this is realised:

The ferryman dissolves
The journey dissolves
The danger dissolves
The dualistic narrative collapses

The song’s repeated warning becomes a Dharma instruction:

Don’t buy into duality. Don’t negotiate with illusion. Don’t pay the price of believing the mind’s projections.

6. The Final Dharma Reading

The entire tale becomes a teaching:

The traveller is the deluded mind.
The ferryman is the illusion of separation.
The river is samsara.
The storm is the kleshas.
The voices are wisdom.
The “other side” is a conceptual fiction.

And the liberation comes not from crossing, but from seeing through the entire setup.

Awakening is not a transaction. It is recognition.

***

Song Lyrics: “Don’t *Pay The Ferryman” by Chris De Burgh

It was late at night on the open road
Speeding like a man on the run
A lifetime spent preparing for the journey

He is closer now and the search is on
Reading from a map in the mind
Yes there’s the ragged hill
And there’s the boat on the river

And when the rain came down
He heard a wild dog howl
There were voices in the night, (“Don’t do it”)
Voices out of sight, (“Don’t do it”)
Too many men have failed before

“Whatever you do
Don’t pay the ferryman
Don’t even fix a price
Don’t pay the ferryman
Until he gets you to the other side”

In the rolling mist then he gets on board
Now there’ll be no turning back
Beware that hooded old man at the rudder

And then the lightning flashed, and the thunder roared
And people calling out his name
And dancing bones that jabbered and a-moaned
On the water

And then the ferryman said
“There is trouble ahead
So you must pay me now, ” (“Don’t do it”)
“You must pay me now, ” (“Don’t do it”)
And still that voice came from beyond

“Whatever you do
Don’t pay the ferryman
Don’t even fix a price
Don’t pay the ferryman
Until he gets you to the other side”

Yeah!

Don’t pay the ferryman
Don’t even fix a price
Don’t pay the ferryman
Until he gets you to the other side

Don’t pay the ferryman
Don’t even fix a price
Don’t pay the ferryman
Until he gets you to the other side
Don’t pay the ferryman

Notes (using a Dharma practice reading)

*Don’t pay as in ‘attaching’/ attachment, following in unawareness the delusions of the six-classes/ or mind-states, (connected to the chakras in our bodies) of beings (mind and emotional energy) still trapped in samsara (cyclic existence).

***

Below a Dharma Reading of the Two Truth Nature of Relative Convention and Ultimate Reality of the Song.

✨ The Ferryman Who Asked for Nothing✨ A Poem

He walked a road of shadowed stone,
A pilgrim wandering on his own,
With storms behind and mist ahead, And echoes of the things unsaid.

A river rose in swirling night,
Its waters veiled from mortal sight,
And on its shore a figure stood—
A hooded man in cloak and hood.

“Cross with me,” the old man cried,
“I’ll take you to the other side.”
The pilgrim paused, his breath grown thin—
For something stirred awake within.

A whisper rose from nowhere near,
A voice both intimate and clear:
“Traveller, see through fear and price—
No ferryman can sell you life.”

The old man’s hand reached out for pay,
But time itself began to sway;
The river shimmered, banks unbound,
As if the world were turning round.

The pilgrim felt his heartbeat slow,
The current shifting in its flow;
The Maras came with masks of doubt,
To twist his mind from inside out.

One whispered, “You are flesh and bone.”
One hissed, “You walk this path alone.”
One thundered, “Death awaits ahead.”
One smiled, “Be proud of all you’ve read.”

But deeper still, beneath their roar,
A truth he’d never heard before:
No river stretched from shore to shore—
No ferryman, no “less” or “more.”

The pilgrim laughed, the spell undone,
The storm dissolved, the night unspun;
The ferryman, the mist, the fear—
All faded as he stood right here.

He bowed to all that he had seen,
To every ghost and in‑between,
And stepped into the boundless tide
Where nothing needs an “other side.”

For when the mind no longer seeks,
The river speaks in silent peaks;
And all the worlds that rise and fall
Are one great shining after all.

So walk your road with open eyes,
Let wisdom cut through each disguise;
The ferryman asks naught from you—
Awareness is the fare that’s true.

***

When Siddhartha Gautama Shakyamuni (historical figure) sat under the bodhi tree, he cut through the attachment to phenomenal (relative/ conventional conception) to realise the ultimate empty nature of all phenomena/reality.