"Board " means "save" in Buddhism.

 

Author: Tao Qing Hsu (Hsu, Tao-qing) 

  

Let us image that there is a large river. The people live in the left shore are in the sufferings of birth, aging, disease and death. There are also a lot of people who fall into the river and struggling in the river and are also suffering the same. Meanwhile, the people live in the right shore have already liberated from the said sufferings.

 

There is a ship of wisdom on the river. The people on the ship of wisdom invite the people on the left shore to board the ship and take them into the right shore. In the river, they also put the rope and lifebuoy down to the people struggling in the river and help them board on the ship and also take them into the right shore. 

In Buddhism, such taking the ferry, such helping process, is called to reform and save others people. If we take the ferry by our own will and arrive the right shore, which is called self-reforming and self-saving. Such is the concept of imagining, describing and metaphor. It lets us easy to understand one of the meanings of Buddhism.