Fingers Pointing To The Moon

In 2003 I had the opportunity to leave my comfortable rural Anglican Parish in a corner of the Christchurch Diocese, New Zealand, to attend a three-month Buddhist retreat at Wangapeka Study and Retreat Centre, sponsored by my Church. I wasn't sure who was most surprised to have the study grant approved, me, or my bishop!

Those three months gave me a new appreciation of how spiritual Truth is always bigger than the particular religious or philosophical lens we use to look at and understand the world in which we live.

The Buddhist teacher who led the retreat, Tarchin Hearn, used many tools in his teaching and introduced me to a new and inclusive way of seeing and understanding both my faith and beliefs as well as a new appreciation of the world in which we live. Understandably, I returned to spend the following year living and working at the Retreat Centre then some years later returned again as the Land Care-taker for 6 months.

One of the teaching tools Tarchin used was his telescope. I remember the first time I looked through it at the full moon. It was one of those total awe-inspiring moments as I saw the moon-craters clearly for the first time! Then he told the story he told the Buddhist story of a nun who once asked her teacher to help her understand something she had read that had puzzled her for many years. The teacher told her she would have to read the passage to him because he had never learnt to read. The nun was taken back and wondered how he could hope to understand the meaning if he could not read the words? To which the teacher responded:
"Truth has nothing to do with words. Truth can be likened to the bright moon in the sky. Words, in this case, can be likened to a finger. The finger can point to the moon’s location. However, the finger is not the moon. To look at the moon, it is necessary to gaze beyond the finger." (1)

I believe the same principle applies to my faith as a Christian. For me, the question is not, 'Is this historically true?' when I read something in the Bible, for example, but 'What happens in my mind and heart when I imagine this to be true?'

The truth Jesus taught was a finger pointing to something far greater than the words recorded in our Bibles. The words are like pointing fingers. As long as we focus on the words we will never find the truth they point towards. As mentioned in my last blog, we need to learn to approach God with our heart-mind not just our thinking-mind if we wish to discover the awe-inspiring love and presence of Divine love. A love that shines far brighter than the moon and will guide us to discover first-hand the eternal inspiration and embrace of God.

Kia mau te rongo me te pai ki a koe i to haerenga
May you find peace and goodwill on your journey.

Phil
__________

(1). The Meaning of the Finger Pointing to the Moon - Tu An Temple (google.com) .

Tarchin Hearn Web Library: Green Dharma Treasury – The web-library of Tarchin Hearn https://greendharmatreasury.org

Wangapeka Retreat Centre:https://wangapeka.org