In the Lankavatara Sutra, translated by Red Pine
Mahamati asks the Buddha:
what does ‘mere designation’ mean?

Pine writes: the Sanskrit is prajnapti-matra. This Yogacara concept means that whatever we might say exists only exists as a verbal convention or designation. What is real cannot be designated or indicated because it includes the finger and the one doing the pointing.

Hmm: A finger can’t point at itself.
Everything outside the finger and everything inside the finger is
not only the finger but reality
and reality points at nothing, names nothing, loves nothing,
including itself
But simply is the loved one and the lover, the hater and the hated.

Bodhi’s last words to his beloveds
Now I’ll go on as you–
without this old body to encumber us.

What I see now is that
reality does not seek rebirth because
what was never born can never be reborn
and what never dies has no fear of death.

Now I understand that, for a while at least. I have touched it.
I guess I thought there would be fireworks
but it’s just like this.

Tuesday February 23, 2021 around noon