personal magic

Apprentice Can I ask a question about magic and what is meant by magic? People seem to use the word in different ways and you do not seem to use it at all – is there a reason for that?

Ngak’chang Rinpoche The reason that Khandro Déchen and I rarely employ the term magic, is because before one can even consider magic one has to be sane – which means to be utterly non-magical in one’s thinking and perception. One has to see the world as it is. One has to experience the world without the interference of the plethora of projections which often accompany spiritual interest. One has to rid oneself of the habit of reading meaning into the Lamas’ every gesture or remark.

For magic to be possible, perception cannot be individually governed via conscious or subconscious wishful thinking. Magic is a question of individuals relating directly with the elements. When individuals relate directly to space, air, fire, water, and earth – they have apparently different responses. Individuals have unique perspectives – and the differences which exist amongst individuals do not become homogenised through realisation – apart from the homogeneity of the emptiness on which those perspectives rest. Moreover – these individual perspectives are fragmentary, kaleidoscopic, and transient. There is continual movement and continual evolution. Magic dwells in that non-individuated individuality.

Vis-à-vis magic – we all relate individually to the fabric of life that we apparently share – but no one can actually explain precisely what our perceptions of the elements are. That is the magic of our situation. We could employ a vast array of cunning linguistics: terms, words, expressions, concepts, notions, concepts, ideas, and ideational gobbledygook – but that would serve to clarify nothing at all. All that language displays is the individual’s personal magic. There is a fundamental symbolic structure which is found in the phenomenal universe which provides reference material, such as the alternation of day and night and the changing of the seasons – but what we make of that, is the nature of magic. Maybe this is why we say nothing of magic?