So, I didn't catch your edits in my net.
The raft is merely a vehicle, (yana means vehicle, e.g. Mahayana). The river, (or ocean) is a similar simile to the abyss of samsara. With the boat image, you put it down when you cross rather than walk around with it on you head. Which leaves a space there for what is on the other side.
However, leveling up to the transcending of samsara that is the self-liberation of ignorance where one leaps, or flies across that immense abyss completely and without ever looking back. If that sounds odd, final or frightening, well, how is that so and why? Who or what's reacting to it? What is our skin in the game? What's to get or lose? Hone it down to simply being. Ah!
I am not a teacher, just sharing some bright gems of dharma I have found on the shore of existence.
When you realize you are too attached to thinking, isn't that great? One can think about things for a lifetime and miss that point. Of course, your new problem is to then become attached to not being attached to thinking or any views regarding that. Hmmm. Back to Zen there, huh?
It is auspicious to have conversations like this as it represents the Dharma Sangha, or as close as we get here these days.
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