The Magician's Trick
El truco del mago
A question about whether the process of distinguishing perception from imagination in meditation is itself a form of separation, and how the beliefs we hold about ourselves obscure what we already are.
The Magician's Trick
A question about whether the process of distinguishing perception from imagination in meditation is itself a form of separation, and how the beliefs we hold about ourselves obscure what we already are.
In a sense, separation allows us to function as an individual, but that separation also harms us in that we limit ourselves.
It allows us to function and develop. Then we reach a point where it becomes crippling, because further development is possible. You could say we come to a place where we're ready to start undoing some of that. But it's not a regressing; it's a transcending.
It's not really about becoming like children, though that is actually the word Jesus uses: "to become as children." It's not about having to be spoon-fed. It's about being able to access that state of being. And once you do that, it could only take a second. Just realizing it for a second, having that knowing for a second, will completely undermine the belief. Because once you see that what you are is that infinite being, the belief will just be obviously false: the belief that you are what is separate. And it can still appear.
I'm confused, because babies look at their hands and they don't know it's their hand, right? They look at their mother and they think the mother is part of them.
Exactly. They don't actually think that, though. They don't have a thought like "this is my hand" or "not my hand." There's just no thinking around it. There is just infinite space with experiencing, undivided, unseparated. We tend to think, "Oh, they're just not figuring it out yet, and then they will." But actually, they have access to this direct knowing of infinite being. We do too. We had it, and we still do. We just cover it.
Distinguishing perception from imagination
But isn't all this mapping, as you're suggesting when we meditate, to recognize what we're perceiving and recognize what is imagining, isn't that separation?
To discern those two and to understand more deeply the way you relate to your experience, the way you navigate everything that you're experiencing, to understand what those things are: just as you can clearly distinguish sound from sight, so too can you learn to distinguish what is mind from all other perceptions and sensations.
But isn't that a process of separation?
No. The process of separation is to start creating imagination and then believe in that imagination as what you are. The belief that you are something that exists in the world of mind: that is separation.
What I'm pointing to comes before you even get to the belief. I'm pointing to the world of what is believed in. To go directly to the belief would be too tricky. So first, and I've actually skipped some steps: what is mind?
A lot of traditional meditation involves sitting, paying attention to breathing, and paying attention to mind. The point is to discern what is air-through-the-nose sensation and what is thinking. People could do that for twenty years just to have that distinction. But that exercise prepares you to start peeling these two apart. "Peeling apart" is a metaphor, but it basically means understanding that there are these two aspects of reality. They're actually inseparable, but you learn to discern what is sensation and what is thinking. Once you can do that, you can start exploring the beliefs. Because just being able to sit and breathe and look at mind isn't going to do a lot more than that.
What we already are
So our beliefs, our imagination of who we are, that is a separation from what we potentially can be? Or rather, what we already are?
It's not what you potentially can be. You already are it. I can call it "being," and I describe it as infinite. By describing it as infinite, it points to the fact that everything is inside it and it can't be defined. If you draw a big line and split it in half, you have two parts. But you can't split infinity in half. You can't divide it.
In language, this is something that points and helps. "Being" points to this sense of aliveness, of "I exist." "Infinite" points to undivided. Together, in words, they point to what we are.
What happens is that in this experience of being human, the mind creates an image of what we are, and then we believe that image to be what we are rather than infinite being. That happens very young, and it's a healthy process.
The longing to remember
At some point, especially if you're having this kind of conversation, people who start getting attracted to this kind of philosophy (if you want to call it that), it's because something knows. Something deep in you knows there's something else, something missing, something forgotten or lost. That longing or calling is basically infinite being wanting to be recognized. It's wanting to come out. It's hard to put into words, but it's just that longing to find what was lost.
Language really starts to work in limited ways here, because it wasn't actually lost. The best way I've found to describe it is that we simply believe in something that's not true. We have a very, very strong and good reason for that belief. And at some point, it starts to hurt. It starts to feel difficult. The process of letting go of that belief is difficult too, but when the difficulty of holding the belief becomes greater than the difficulty of letting it go, some magic starts to happen.
If anything I'm saying, or even the experience in the meditation, gives you any sense of wonder or magic, even for half a second, a tingly sense of something beautiful, any kind of "yes," even if it's tiny and lasts only a moment: that's what to follow. That is something in you resonating.
The magician and the trick
The mind is like an incredible magician that performs very powerful magic tricks, and we get mesmerized. At some point, we start to get curious about how it works. We start to get suspicious that it's not real magic; it's a trick. We could get pretty convinced it's a trick, and still not know how it works. But then we look really closely, over and over. How does the trick work?
Part of us still wants it to be magic, pulling us back into the illusion. And a part of us just wants to know the truth and uncover the trick. The moment we recognize how it works is a revelation. Nothing from then on can convince you that it was magic. There is no longer any way it can fool you. The whole spell is gone.
That's one way to describe recognizing your true self. The magician was a trickster that you created. At some point, it just drove you crazy, and you wanted out. The whole process is gloriously beautiful from beginning to end.
You could ask yourself, when you're struggling with something: how am I tricking myself? Whatever we do, we're doing it out of freedom and love, even the tricking.