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I think this is one of those things that are correct only through certain lenses. As @person points out, we don't cut off the finger pointing to the moon. There is a Middle Way.

Like a teaching that teaches how to think rather than what to think, Buddhism is more like a practice as opposed to a belief system.

The First and Second Noble Truths make sense. That which lives suffers unease either through physical and mental maladies or the stress that comes with them. As we work on the Fourth Noble Truth which is the Eightfold Path, we can directly witness the Third Noble Truth which is that suffering can be transformed.

Beliefs are ok to put to the test but I try not to have faith in them. Especially my own.

A thirteenth Century monk wrote:
_When you hold the lantern for others, you light the way for yourself.
_

“The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish, and when the fish are caught the trap is forgotten. The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits. When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten. The purpose of the word is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to.”

― Chuang Tzu

One can memorize all "80,000 teachings" of the Buddha and know the words yet not realize the heart of the Buddha. It is said that Devadatta memorized all the teachings of Siddhartha. Yet he failed to understand Siddhartha's heart and opposed him as his self declared enemy, attacking Siddhartha and his disciples repeatedly.
Suri and Handkuo were considered simple beings, unable to eve distinguish between themselves who was who. Yet, they understood the Buddha's heart and were among the first to achieve Enlightenment.
Study is a necessary part of Buddhist practice. But study without understanding is no more than an exercise in ego. It is not the words, but what is within the words, the message hidden within the message, that we must seek. It is in using the words to understand the heart of the Buddha and thus open one's own heart to the true message and meaning of the words.
A scholar studied the writings and practices of a certain school of Buddhism for twenty years. He knew the "How", but did not understand the "Why" of that school's success.
When he approached a senior member of that school, he explained his conundrum.
To which the leader said to him (the scholar), that it was time for him to see the why. It was time for him to DO. It is said that once the scholar took the action, pt all that theory, all that study, into action, by applying it through action, he immediately understood.
From the leg of stude and the leg of practice grows the leg of understanding and faith.
Without practice, study is just unverified theory
Without study, practice is like wandering in a fog.
Without practice and study, faith is meaningless, blind
Thus Faith is at first no more than a willingness to study and practice.
As one studies, learning the WHY
As one practices, sharpening the HOW
One's faith grows and manifests into the NOW
The mind grows, the heart expands to enfold all within and without
The Buddha shines from within to light the way for self and others.

I forget who said it but I was told that :
We are all children of the Buddha
Being children of the Buddha, we are each Buddha
We just haven't awakend to that reality yet.

Peace to all

Hello again everyone. For those posting replies in my thread about Lovingmind I thank you dearly, and want to get back to continuing that discussion soon.

One thing I noticed last night is that there is a really big problem in English. We use the word "enlightenment" as a destination. But in the original Pali bodhi is a verb. Waking/awakening.

So rather than call it "meditating" I was brainstorming some new terminology. I love inventing words, I hope it does not rub you the wrong way.

Aware-ing
Awakening
Consciousing
Ongoing Wakefulness
Upwaking [rather than waking up]
Truthwaking
Truthbreathing
Relaxedly Alertly Being
Enlightenedbeing
Wakefulbeing
gatheredbeing
collectedbeing

I want the word to descibe an ongoing activity, not an action with a finishing

If you think of a river, a river ceaselessly pours into the ocean. It's this very pouring that defines the river. If the river stops flowing to the ocean, it is no longer a river. Just like how meditation is the flowing toward Awakening.

Or another way of considering it, when a bell is struck and resonating, the sound IS the ringing. Without the ongoing vibration , there would be no sound.

This makes me really wonder about not just how language can be an impediment or obstacle, but also about the absolute nature of reality, and how we are closer to it / closer in it / more closely embodying it when we are in meditation posture and in a state of samadhi. Like, what does that say about the self-reflexive comprehension of the moment? Almost as if our inherent natural luminosity-awareness-wakefulness is in a constant state of dispersion and only by recollecting it into the sacred posture and cultivating that abiding can we progress toward embodying the resonation that is Awaking. Bodhing.

Do you get what I mean? It's not a finished point at the end of a long process we're targeting, it's an ongoing abiding , rather ceaseless in nature , that is only accessible through acclimating to the poise of gathering. Entering the poise of gathering is what unleashes the enlightened nature through you. The vibration, the resonation, the frequency-ing is there but the vessel needs to be embodied. But even more than that, it's not like we become the vessel once and then we're done, the whole point is that the re-poise is closer to Truth because the actual nature is beyond a fixed contortion or fixed expression. You want to be on the edge of the tsunami, you need to be as edgefull and shapeless as the wavebreak itself. And the only way to enter that shapeless wavebreak on the edge of the now is to re-poise into gathering posture, because gathering posture is the nexus , is the node that enables reality with a capital R to flow through you.

It's almost like a lightning rod [I love spelling this term lightening but people always point it out so I'll spell it the modern way]
A lightning rod is a firm shape, but it enables the flow of an intense, dynamical, electrical charge from the heavens to the earth. In a very similar way, the enlightened potential is present like storm clouds above us, waiting for our re-poise to enable the flow of electricity on the brink of presence.

What is the shape of the moment? Of all the awareness of the moment? We must adjust our "lens" like the lens of a camera to get an in-focus symbolic representation of what "is" and in this case the adjustment of the lens is an active process that requires gentle and pointed micromovements to keep what is meaningful visible, legible.

Enlightenment is not a traincar, or a railway track, or a destination city on the west coast that you get to after riding the train for long enough. Enlightenment is joyful re-poise into the shapefulness that opens us up to shapelessness

When Dogen said "Zazen is Enlightenment," that the meditation posture IS enlightenment itself, he was indicating this. You enter the waves of reality's ocean by gathering and re-poise [samadhi]

When Phagmodrugpa said "meditation is the way to enlightenment", he was indicating this

Sitting, breathing, being,
it's not eating for the goal of becoming full
it's gathering for the sake of gathering, because all is dispersed already

And in the battle against dispersion, we must gather, gather, gather.

It seems like the very fact that we are even in samsara implies that our inner-psyche habit of dispersion is very strong. Which means we must apply ourselves to gathering , gathering , gathering. First, to stem the tide, and eventually, to turn the tide the other way.

And what does success look like? Again, it does not look like we reach an end state that looks like every other sentient being in samsara subject to dispersion. No, it looks like gathering and re-poise, which is none other than the posture of meditation.