I first heard the term “magical display” in a non-dual meditation group. Once heard, it is difficult not to use this phrase, because it so aptly describes the manifested experience of living in a body on earth. All that we see and hear, touch and sense, is the magical display of what is not-two.

A year ago, for the first time, a friend referred to the source of the magical display as “the magician.” Of course there is no magician, but it is still a vivid metaphor for the play that we do not create, and yet we are required to live within. Thoughts simply arise out of nowhere—the work of the magician; reactions and responses, instantaneous and out of our control—the play of the magician. This splendid planet, a speck within unending galaxies, so infinite and unexplainable, the drama of the magician.

In the end, all images such as these will let us go, because they move us away and into the mind—the treacherous, awesome, powerful mind! But there is a phase where metaphors are very useful as pointing tools. Although I recognize their limitation, they are still helpful to me. They help me loosen the sense of control I used to believe I had over life. In hindsight, thinking that there was an “I” that had control is ludicrous. In this vast arising, all interwoven—no possibility of separating out a single anything that exists independently—I thought I had control? Not only not possible, I wouldn’t want it to be in the realm of possibility, either. Rather to fully let go, and be carried by the living stream that is always spilling now—to receive the magician’s offerings as precious gifts. Even the shoulder pain I’m having today is a gift, stunning really, that sensation exists and can be experienced in such exquisite intensity.

At the same time, it’s a delight to know that all of this is unfolding freely—no no curtain to be pulled away, no magician, no magical display.

© Amrita Skye Blaine, 2013