Like a fish thrown onto dry land, pulled from its home, this mind trembles to escape from Māra’s domain.

Vārijo va thale khitto — like a fish thrown onto land: the image is vivid and precise. The fish on land is not in its element; it thrashes desperately seeking return to water. So the mind that has been pulled from its habitual patterns by contemplative practice: it thrashes, seeks return to the known.

Okamokata ubbhato — pulled from its home: oka is the dwelling, the known habitat. The mind accustomed to distraction and compulsive thinking finds sustained attention as a strange, uncomfortable land where it does not know how to move.

Māradheyyaṃ pahātave — to escape from Māra’s domain: the suffering of the fish out of water is the suffering of mind that feels it cannot bear the clarity practice generates. Māra, the personification of what binds to the conditioned cycle, does not want the mind to escape its domain. Thus it generates that thrashing as resistance.

The practice before this thrashing is not repression but gentle observation: watch how the mind thrashes. That observation itself is the return to water. The observing mind is not trapped on the ground.