Day 2 Using Illusions to Transcend Illusion

The ignorant and the foolish think
That the fist exists separately from the pointing finger.
Mistaking the finger for the moon, they practice uselessly;
They only fabricate strange illusions in the realms of sense and object.


"The ignorant and the foolish" of this stanza is only an approximate translation. The Chinese version of the Song of Enlightenment actually describes two types of stupidity. One is the ignorance of adults, and the other is the ignorance of mentally retarded children. These analogies refer to practitioners of the Hinayana tradition and outer path teachings respectively.