​Alan Watts used to laugh when he told that story. The master points to the moon, and the student keeps staring at the finger. So the master shocks him — sometimes with a shout, a slap, or in legend, by cutting off the finger — anything to snap him into seeing directly. For me, the Hell House, the family, the sickness, the pills, even the gym — those were all fingers. They pointed to something brighter, something that can’t be owned or controlled: the moon of pure awareness.

 

When I finally stopped worshipping the finger — stopped trying to fix, explain, or please anyone — I looked up and saw the moon. That was the Ah-ha! moment.

 

The laughter that comes from nowhere, the same laughter that rises during a mushroom vision or a deep breath after rage. It’s the universe exhaling through me. Watts said heaven belongs to the childlike, because a child doesn’t stand between breath and wonder.

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The child doesn’t say, “I should not sneeze 30 times in the gym.”

The child just sneezes, wipes his face, and keeps lifting iron. That’s Zen. Every rep, every sigh, every beat of music in my headphones is another reminder that the moon has always been there — waiting for me to stop staring at the finger.

 

Written in exile, between silence and laughter.