Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: Magic? How to levitate over Grand Canyon

Monday, February 26, 2024

Magic? How to levitate over Grand Canyon

D. Copperfield; Mystic Knights; Dhr. Seven, Jen (Dharma Bud Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly

Who could fly, even with stage wires, across the great expanse of the smaller U.S. Grand Canyon or the far larger though far less famous Copper Canyon of Mexico? Not a trickster magician.

First we get still, then stillness sets in.
Wisdom Quarterly has always been interested in one magic feat above the others: the possibility of real yogic levitation. This is achievable through successful stillness (samadhi) meditation. But what does it take to still the mind, to still thought, to still the heart, to still emotions, memories, intrusive thoughts and feelings, loops, ruminating, planning, distractions, monkey mind frenzy, restlessness, sleepiness, laziness, lassitude, boredom, inattentiveness, ADHD, yearning, pining, speculating, skepticism, in brief, the many and varied manifestations of the Five Hindrances?

The goal is not control. It's not being controlled.

Those are the first five obstacles to even remaining on the cushion to begin to get still. Stillness temporarily purifies the mind/heart so that coherence can set in, when everything is in its place and doing its thing. That is the beginning of samma-samadhi, what we have for so long been misled to think means "right concentration." Unfortunately, in English, "concentration" seems like a doing, an intentional act, a strain, a holding of the breath, gritting of the teeth, a strong determination, and force... It may be. But this is not samadhi. Samadhi requires no hard doing, only allowing, accepting, awareness of what is (not embellishing, distorting, or departing the scene for some place more interesting or stimulating, more pleasant or profound). Be here now. It's so simple, it's impossible at the beginning. Just "be"? No, but LET IT BE. Allow. Exhale. Find contentment in this moment.

Right Concentration: Jhanas (L. Brasington)

Rest. It begins with calm, and calm begins with relaxation that is founded on simply letting things be just as they are and radically accepting them. Stay (rather than departing).

Mindfulness (sati) is wakefulness, bare (unembellished, undistorted) awareness of what is, whatever it is, vigilance (keeping a vigil), coming back again and again (if by habit the mind turns away in search of sensuality, anger/aversion, restless states, drowsiness, or skeptical disquietude).

Begin with quiet. If we are quiet on the inside, it will be easy to be quiet on the outside. Therefore, be quiet on the outside until the inside quietens. This will be the first step to the first absorption, being pulled into the object of meditation (the breath or whatever it is).

When there is no this-and-that but only that being with this (a nonduality between that meditation object over there and this meditator over here because of being so absorbed, so interested, so zesty for the sweet release of calm and bliss, piti (rapture). Stay with it. It gets better. Bliss increases. Then next bliss loses its charm, and calm is better. And next stillness is better. These first four stages are the ingredients of a solid foundation for learning to meditate.

And this is odd. We meditate to learn to meditate. That is, we let the natural happen -- this natural state of stilling and absorbing -- so that we can use that strength of mind to investigate two very important things, ultimate-materiality and ultimate-mentality. But that will come.

Practicing Jhanas (Snyder and Rasmussen)

For now, we must perform a lesser miracle, a mundane marvel, a magic that is no trick. It's time to levitate. The ancients knew how to do it. Non-Buddhist yogis knew how to do it. Catholic saints, sometimes not taking themselves too seriously, took themselves so lightly as to float, ascend, be raptured up. There are historical accounts of this in the West. Look them up.

We are going the way of the East, so it is more systematic. The secrets are buried in Buddhaghosa's manual of Buddhist meditation, The Path of Purification. It gives the instructions, not that they'll make much sense to the layperson, the nonpractitioner. Find a teacher who knows-and-sees. They exist. (Here's a list).

It will not even be possible to do anything in the first paragraph without morality, virtue, self-restraint. Immorality leads to disquietude, to worry, scruples, rumination, remorse, regret, repentance, fear and foreboding of what may come as a result. So take up virtue because, as the great musician Danny Elfman so aptly said so very long ago: "Peace of mind, peace of mind, hard to keep, hard to find, look ahead, look behind, looking for, peace of mind, peace of mind, can't relax, can't unwind, deep inside, secret mind" ("I'm Afraid" by the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo).

That is all for now.

What about the magician David Copperfield? You don't think he took up Buddhist meditation or the Ashtanga (Eight Limb) Yoga and actually learned to sit cross-legged and move through the air like a bird, do you?

I don't know how he did it. It looks completely fake, a trick of the camera, an early version of green screen technology, using filming methods made famous by David Blaine street magic.

What kind of "magic" was that?

If a sign of light comes, don't look. Let it be.

Because he was on the street, we assumed it was all filmed as performed on the street. But actually he was just filming real reactions to tricks. The tricks were enhanced later so that what we saw was assumed to be what the people on the street saw, which looked amazing. In fact, those people on the street were tricked with set up scenarios and magic helpers. They were illusions. But the real illusion is what we saw, people seemingly verifying on the street what we thought we were watching at home. For instance, he claims to levitate. From home, this is shown as coming up a foot or more off the ground. In real life, that is to say, on the street, he only came up an inch or two. And that he did by turning his body, having them stand at an angle, then tilting one foot, which from a particular angle looks like two feet leaving the ground. From another angle, it's clearly just one foot. He's supporting his weight totally on the other foot. It's laughable. But it freaked some people out because he's so weird, intense, and convincing. And something (a trick) happened that the people on the street react to -- not all of them -- but the very best reactions got put into his TV specials to vouch that he was "really" doing what he misled us to believe he was doing. Easy. Relatively easy. He's a very skilled deceiver, and that the stage magician's stock and trade. We're all in agreement with it. Ask Houdini. But that is not to say real magic doesn't exist. It does.