THE MIND IS THE MAGICIAN
“My professional life has been a constant record of disillusion, and many things that seem wonderful to most men are the every-day commonplaces of my business.”

Harry Houdini

We sit down to meditation regularly and attempt to corral the proverbial mind without trying. We ‘see’ the outcomes of the mind. The thoughts are incessant. They almost never stop. And all of them are “important”, “something we have to do”, “bad memory”, “future problem”, “irritating person”, pleasant person”, ad infinitum.

Where’s the quiet, The Silence? It Is behind all this chatter. But what is between the chatter and The Silence. The slippery mind.

The mind is a magician in how it distorts reality, misdirects, throws out distractive nonsense conversations, and tricks us into buying into all the tinsel it puts out. It is compelling to process all that misdirection and get past it. That is the point. We are so busy processing the content that the mind gives us, we do not see the mind, respond appropriately to the mind, nor track it down any further than it’s discursive thoughts.

How magical?! How childlike are we to believe all this delusion and illusion?!
We are like fish with bated worms, biting at impostors. We are so caught up with the tricks that we forget that we need to see more clearly the magician.
But the magician is skilled and subtle. Deceit, mirrors, illusions of reality, are accomplishments that the magician does all day long. And she is an expert.

Almost no one gets to really know the magician and how he does his tricks. These are secrets that have eluded all of us most of our lives.

If we knew that the magician was tricking us beforehand, we would have an advantage. Even if we fell for the trick, we would know that we’ve been tricked. Worse, would be, not knowing that we were fooled and living as if it all was really real.

When we know that the magician is performing again, we get better prepared and increase our skills (meditation) to ‘catch’ the magician in the act. The trick then, is made completely inconsequential and it is the magician we can directly confront. When we’ve thoroughly busted the magician, he can no longer fool us as successfully. We are getting the edge on the magician.

So when we see all the thoughts, all the thoughts that would be there for the next Moment or next meditation, we see that these trick cards that are dealt us are intentionally meant to tie-up our vision and awareness with the activity of shushing them away. There will be no spotlighting the mind or magician, with any meaningful discernment, if we engage in only shushing thoughts.

Now we ‘see’ that the magician is there because the thoughts or trick cards, are the calling cards of the magician. So, we see differently now because we truly ignore the cards (or thoughts) (without pushing). It may not seem like much has changed, but really, we are now getting to the source of the problem. No matter how compelling the magician makes the tricks, we now always know it is just a trick. Thoughts are thoughts. They can have consequences but they are not real unless we believe they are real. Just like a ‘trick’ from a magician.

Knowing all this, we watch what the mind or magician is up to doing next. We start to realize that the magician has taken control away from us and has even tricked us away from the Moment. It is the Presence that ‘checks’ the magician from taking the control of our so-called reality. This is one of the biggest delusions in the magician’s arsenal, immersion in the past or future. We, for certain, are beyond easy reach, when we are in these very distorted realities.

Once we have gained this insight into what to see or look for, we keep a watchful eye on the magician, all the time. This awareness allows us to see the magician when she is active and routinely ignore the shenanigans that show up. We now know that deceitful card tricks are not the evidence of “The Energy”. “The Energy” has a completely different vibe with a fullness and beauty that cannot be mistaken for anything less. Trick cards and crazy thoughts with funky energy -magician. Integrated, full, silent, everythingyness -“The Energy”.

Since the trick cards are now out of the way (after dutiful practice in the Moment), we are left with the tool called the mind, or magician, and the Deep Silence of Presence, as the two remaining choices or obstacles. We do not necessarily have to make anything an obstacle, but can. The choice of Being is only a choice at an elementary level. “Being” is who we ‘are’ anyways. It is hard to make a choice, when the choice is not a choice. It Is.

Constant Integrated Awareness is the bedrock of all the above machinations. Again it is the most powerful tool and identity we have. Honing and culling Awareness is the most essential investment we can make, every Moment. Fear, loathing, resistance are most unkind and horrific when not confronted within us. See the magic in the Moment of Being. The magician, upon illumination, is more entertainment than a serial predator causing untold harm.

This Iz Daddy’O