The Moon and the Fingers that Point

No one can wander far on any so called "spiritual" forum without stumbling upon the words:- do not mistake the finger that points for the moon itself. I have used it myself. Now I find that there are some who call into question its profundity! In fact, assertions are made that "finger" and "moon" are both part of a non-dual reality. 

Here we go again. Yet which is important? Finger OR moon OR both?

Dogen, who I have mentioned before, wrote a famous little poem, much admired by those who live in the land of zen:-

To what shall I 

Liken the world?

Moonlight, reflected

In dewdrops,

Shaken from a crane's bill.

Dogen - cause of all the trouble

We are told that the entire world is fully contained in each and every dewdrop, each one symbolic of all impermanent moments, yet each "not an illusion in contrast with reality", this simply because they are "liberated by their reflection of the moon's glow". Conversely, the moon as a symbol of Reality-as-is is not an aloof realm since it is fully merged in the finite and individuated manifestations of the dew. In fact, "the poem itself becomes one with the setting it depicts."

A crane, perhaps seeking for a tasty dewdrop

Again, we are asked to pay attention to the word "shaken". We are not to understand all this as some sort of static image but, by virtue of being shaken, the metaphor becomes "dynamic and interactive". 

Putting any further analysis aside, I open here to the sheer richness of my being here, where assertions of "eastern pantheism" and "quietism" must yield to a very dynamic and transformative way of being in our world.

It does seem that if we wish to pay attention to much of the "new physics", of "quantum leaps" and "superstrings", then such a Reality as evoked by Dogen can act as a guide. 

It seems that in Reality's "ceaseless advance into novelty",  finger and moon are "dual" movements of a non-dual reality. Just as well that the actual living of Reality can be so simple.

Speaking of the simplicity of reality, perhaps it could be asked as to whether much of this is purely academic, of no consequence. As I see it, yes, in some cases that is so. When everything valuable is given, is gift, some can well find themselves naturally expressing such a way of being (or non-being!) without any exploration of various ways and means, dewdrops or moons. But I find such thoughts can add clarity, and I think again of the words of Jane Hirshfield which I have already quoted in a previous blog on "Zen Poems". 

Jane speaks of the potential of great art or poetry "to evoke, a truing of vision, a changing of vision. Entering a good poem, a person feels, tastes, hears, thinks, and sees in altered ways.......by changing selves, one by one, art changes also the outer world that selves create and share." 

I also think here of just what it is that we should seek to communicate to others, again of what was said in a previous blog. That true communication is communion, that what can only be truly communicated is that which we already are. Often children can see the truth of us no matter our words. We are communicating all the time, like it or not. Whatever helps "true" our vision is therefore of worth. 

Two takes on "communion"

So, whatever, no matter. We have all eternity so there is no time to lose.

Related Quotes:-

Hee-Jin Kim, writing of the "deeper matrix" of Dogen, that it was.......a passionate search for liberation through concrete activities and expression.

(Kim is widely recognised as one of our greatest authorities on Dogen)

......the aim is to discourage the 'craving for generality' - to encourage people to look before they think. 

(Ray Monk, on Wittgenstein, from his biography of the latter)

Language is a poison that can be used to seduce, mislead and bewitch us, but it can also heal, as when we speak truly. 

(Wittgenstein)

Dogen's emphasis is not on how to transcend language but on how to radically use it.

(Hee-Jin Kim)

Ultimate speech is to be rid of speech; ultimate action is to be rid of action. 

(Zhuangzi)

Words and letters, however socially constructed, are never mere signs in the abstract, theoretical sense, but alive and active "in the flesh and blood." Contrary to the conventional view that language is no more than a means of communication, it is profoundly internal to an individual's life. Language flows individually and collectively through the existential bloodstream, so much so that it is breath, blood and soul of human existence. Herein lies the essence of Dogen's radical phenomenalism. Thus knowledge becomes acesis, instead of gnosis or logos - "seeing things as they are" now means "making things as they are." In this light the indexical analogy of "the finger that points at the moon" is highly misleading, if not altogether wrong, because it draws on a savifically inefficacious conception of language.

(Kim-Jin Kim)