Finger Pointing at Moon is a Zen Koan.
The Buddha says "my teaching is not a dogma or a doctrine, but no doubt some people will take it as such." The Buddha goes on to say "I must state clearly that my teaching is a method to experience reality and not reality itself, just as a finger pointing at the moon is not the moon itself. A thinking person makes use of the finger to see the moon. A person who only looks at the finger and mistakes it for the moon will never see the real moon."
Most of us are enraptured by the finger, analyzing and measuring, writing scientific treatises, and have long ago forgotten to look up.
