Excerpts from: The Magic of the Mind: An exposition of the Kāḷakārāma Sutta by Ven. Kaṭukurunde Ñāṇananda Mahathera: Suppose a magician should hold a magic-show at the four cross-roads; and a keen-sighted man should see it, ponder over it and reflect on it.

The news of the magician’s arrival has spread far and wide, and eager crowds are now making for the large hall where he is due to perform today. You too buy a ticket and manage to enter the hall. There is already a scramble for seats, but you are not keen on securing one. for you have entered with a different purpose in mind. You have had a bright idea to outwit the magician – to play a trick on him yourself. So, you cut your way through the thronging crowds and stealthily creep into some concealed corner of the stage.

The magician enters the stage through the dark curtains, clad in his pitchy black suit. Black boxes containing his secret stock-in-trade are also now on the stage. The performance starts and from your point of vantage you watch. And as you watch with sharp eyes every movement of the magician, you now begin to discover, one after the other, the secrets behind those “breath taking’ miracles of your favourite magician. The hidden holes and false bottoms in his magic boxes, the counterfeits and secret pockets, the hidden strings and buttons that are pulled and pressed under the cover of the frantic waving of his magic-wand.

Very soon you see through his bag of wily tricks so well, that you are able to discover his next ‘surprise well in advance. Since you can now anticipate his ‘surprises’ they no longer surprise you. His ‘tricks’ no longer deceive you. His ‘magic’ has lost its magic for you. It no longer kindles your imagination as it used to do in the past. The magician’s ‘hocus-pocus’ and ‘abracadabra’ and his magic-wand now suggest nothing to you – for you know them now for what they are, that is, ‘meaningless’. The whole affair has now turned out to be an empty-show, one vast hoax – a treachery.

In utter disgust, you turn away from it to take a peep at the audience below. And what a sight! A sea of craned necks, eyes that gaze in blind admiration; mouths that gape in dumb appreciation; the ‘Ah!’s and ‘Oh!’s and whistles of speechless amazement. Truly, a strange admixture of tragedy and comedy which you could have enjoyed instead of the magic-show, if not for the fact that you yourself were in that same sorry plight on many a previous occasion.

Moved by compassion for this frenzied crowd, you almost frown on the magician as he chuckles with a sinister grin at every applause from his admirers. “How is it,” you wonder, “that I have been deceived so long by this crook of a magician?” You are fed up with all this and swear to yourself “Never will I waste my time and money on such empty shows, Nev-ver. The show ends. Crowds are now making for the exit. You too slip out of your hiding place unseen, and mingle with them.

KāḷakārāmaSutta

At one time the Buddha was staying at Saketa in Kalaka’s monastery:

“Whatsoever in the world that is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, attained, sought after and pondered over by the mind – all that is known to the Tathāgata [Tathāgata is the word the Buddha uses in the Pāli Canon when referring to himself or other Buddhas], but the Tathāgata has not taken his stand upon it, or made an approach by way of craving or views. He sees a form with the eye, but in him there is no desire and lust (for it) He hears a sound with the ear…… smells a fragrance with the nose. He tastes a flavour with the tongue, touches a tangible with the body, cognizes an idea with the mind, but in him there is no desire-and-lust; he is well released in mind.

“Thus, a Tathāgata does not conceive’ of a visible.” [refers to the stage in sense perception when one egotistically imagines or fancies a perceived ‘thing’ to be out there in its own right, which results in a subject-object dichotomy perpetuating the conceit: ‘self,’ ‘I’ and ‘mine’] The Tathāgata does not conceive’ of a thing as apart from sight;’ he does not conceive of an unseen: He does not conceive of a ‘thing-worth-seeing’;’ he does not conceive about a seer.

[The terms ‘thing-worth-seeing, -hearing, -cognizing etc’ are pointing to the habit we have of imputing inherent value or substance to perceptions, thoughts and emotions. Without such imputation they do not possess any such solidity or worth]. Thus, the Tathägata being such-like in regard to all phenomena seen, heard, sensed and cognized, is ‘Such’. These modes of conceiving represent ‘the plane of voidness'(suññatabhumi).

“This barb I beheld, well in advance, whereon mankind is hooked, impaled. I know, I see ’tis verily so’- no such clinging for the Tathāgatas. Having seen this barb well in advance:” janami passami tatheva tam: A phrase often cited in the Pali Canon as representing the stamp of dogmatism characteristic of speculative views.

A clue to the difficulties experienced by the Buddha in coming to terms with the world, may be found in your own unusual experience at the magic-show. To all intents and purposes, you saw the magic performance. Yet, there are difficulties involved in any unreserved affirmation or denial. The position of a Tathägata who has fully comprehended the magical illusion that is consciousness, is somewhat similar. He too has seen all the magical performances in the form of sense data enacted on the stage of consciousness. And yet he is aware of the limitations in any categorical affirmation or negation. Whereas the worldling is wont ‘to take his stand upon’ the knowledge he has “grasped’, the Tathagata regards that tendency as a ‘barb’ in spite of (or because of) the fact that he has ‘fully understood’. In other words, he has seen the magic-show so well as to ‘miss the show from the wording’s standpoint.

The question of ‘seeing what-is-shown’, brings us to the relationship between sign and significance. Sense-perception at all levels relies largely on signs. Sense-objects are therefore signs which have become significant in themselves owing to our ignorance that their significance depends on the psychological mainsprings of greed, hatred and delusion. This, in other words, is a result of reasoning from the wrong end (ayoniso manasikara) which leads both the philosopher and the scientist alike into a topsy-turvydom of endless theorising.

If, with mindfulness and wisdom, the tendency to ‘go out’ into perceptions, thoughts and emotions is restrained, and one just allows seeing to be seeing, hearing to be hearing etc., the whole papañca-drama does not get launched in the first place [papañca: conceptual proliferation]. The heart then rests at ease, open and clear; all perceptions conventionally labelled as ‘myself or ‘the world’ are seen as transparent, if convenient, fictions.

[Note on the word Atammayata:

Literally it means ‘not made of that,’ and refers primarily to the quality of experience prior to, or without, a subject/object duality arising. This insight leads us into a contemplation of the relationship of the apparent subject and object – how the tension between the two generates the world of things and its experiencer, and more importantly how, when that duality is seen through, the heart’s liberation is the result.]

Image source and a text on papañca:

https://conciergepsychologyla.com/blog/papanca/