19 The Finger and the Moon
It is a pity that our medium, photography, which is practiced by so many, is understood by so very few.
—Ernst Haas
The tells the story of the Buddha attempting to explain to his cousin, Ananda, why clinging to common thinking patterns may obscure for most people the true nature of things: the Dharma-nature. A person attempting to point others in the direction of higher meaning, according to the Buddha, “is like a man pointing a finger at the moon to show it to others who should follow the direction of the finger to look at the moon. If they look at the finger and mistake it for the moon, they lose both the moon and the finger.”
The finger in Buddha’s example is just a means to an end: a way of leading another ...
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