A Quote by Nhat Hanh

It is often said that the Buddha's teaching is only a raft to help you cross the river, a finger pointing to the moon. Don't maistake the finger for the moon. The raft is not the shore. If we cling to the raft, if we cling to the finger, we miss everything. We cannot, in the name of the finger or the raft kill each other. Human life is more precious than any ideology, any doctrine.

Nhat Hanh

Quote Topics

Any Cannot Cling Cross Doctrine Each Everything Finger Help Human Human Life Ideology Life Life Is Miss Moon More Name Often Only Other Pointing Precious Raft River Said Shore Teaching Than To The Moon We Cannot

Quote Author

Nhat Hanh
Vietnamese - Monk
Born: October 11, 1926

The raft is used to cross the river. It isn't to be carried around on your shoulders. The finger which points at the moon isn't the moon itself.

Nhat Hanh

My finger can point to the moon, but my finger is not the moon. You don't have to become my finger, nor do you have to worship my finger. You have to forget my finger, and look at where it is pointing.

Rajneesh

My teaching is not a philosophy. It is the result of direct experience... My teaching is a means of practice, not something to hold onto or worship. My teaching is like a raft used to cross the river. Only a fool would carry the raft around after he had already reached the other shore of liberation.

Gautama Buddha

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, right?

Huineng

Its like a finger pointing away to the moon. Dont concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.

Bruce Lee

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had a world where everybody said, 'We don't know?' The fact is that you're surrounded -God and you don't see God, because you KNOW ABOUT God. The final barrier to the vision of God is your God concept. You miss God because you think you know. The highest knowledge of God is to know God as unknowable. All revelations, however divine, are never any more than a finger pointing at the moon. As we say in the East, 'When the sage points to the moon, all the idiot sees is the finger'.

Anthony de Mello

Words are not truth. Truth is like the moon, and words are like my finger. I can point to the moon with my finger, but my finger is not the moon. Do you need my finger to see the moon?

Huineng

When finger point at moon, don't look at finger or you'll miss the moon.

Bruce Lee

A religious belief is not a statement about Reality, but a hint, a clue about something that is a mystery, beyond the grasp of human thought. In short, a religious belief is only a finger pointing to the moon. Some religious people never get beyond the study of the finger. Others are engaged in sucking it. Others yet use the finger to gouge their eyes out. These are the bigots whom religion has made blind. Rare indeed is the religionist who is sufficiently detached from the finger to see what it is indicating - these are those who, having gone beyond belief, are taken for blasphemers.

Anthony de Mello

A raft needed to cross the river is discarded when the other shore is reached, not carried about on one's head.

Gautama Buddha

To point at the moon a finger is needed, but woe to those who take the finger for the moon.

D.T. Suzuki

A practice can be helpful, but didn't the Buddha compare it to a raft, suggesting it be abandoned when you reach the other shore?

Eckhart Tolle

When you're the ones in the life raft and you have four or five women in the life raft who put it together, by the end of it your nerves are blown. The people you're going to attack are the people who are helping you, who you are holding it together with.

Junot Diaz

As the old Zen saying reminds us, the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.

Helen Palmer Geisel

Another thing I don't want on my tombstone," Shane said. You have others?" Claire asked. He held up one finger. "I thought it wasn't loaded," Shane said. Second finger. "Hand me a match so I can check the gas tank." Third finger. "Killed over ice cream. Basically, any death that requires me to be stupid first.