FINGER IN THE MOON

   The great mistake in our thinking processes is to assume that we can understand nonduality by using conceptual terms, but this is the big joke we play on ourselves because the processes of thinking use concepts and terms that are themselves dualistic.   The most we can expect through using descriptive terms and explanations is to notice the finger (terms) that is pointing at the moon (nondual seeing).  When all the obsession with the finger is transcended, we can intuit the reality (the moon) that the terms (finger) might indicate.  Then we can jam that finger right into the moon itself and experience it firsthand.  Terms are always secondhand approaches. The great ignorance of conceptual thinking can keep us swimming around in the ocean of repetitious habitual wrong view. It is impossible to reach the meaning of reality, which is beyond concepts, through the use of concepts, yet these same concepts can get us quite a way down the path so at some point we can see what it is that the finger is pointing to. Through the structures of meditational practices we cannot reach the non-constructed ultimate liberation or enlightenment.   If we want to realize reality of nondual pure awareness then we have to enter an unconstructed presence beyond mind and its conceptual structures. This becomes possible through structured practices like meditations using mantra repetition or breathing exercises or scriptural recital.  These structured practices help to develop a stronger and stronger attentiveness that will be required to become stable in our new nondual apperception.   Recitation is a potent method that can be used to help remind us of what’s important to know; it can serve to implant seeds in memory that changes the unwholesome thought structures into wholesome ones.  This way the finger can gently merge itself into the moon.