In the myth that sees itself imagining itself, there is no mystery. There is a kind of magic nonetheless. Not the magic of gods, not the magic of demons, but a quite ordinary human magic. The ability to hear the names of things is a kind of magic, to know that the names are not tacked on afterwards but are the perfect expression of the things, coincident with them, arising as they arise. This magic aspect of language can only exist coincident with the realization of the emptiness of language, language being empty because it is pure construct; that is, sounds have been chosen to represent things. (The sound ‘door’ has nothing to do with the object ‘door’.)
There appears to be a contradiction here: language as construct versus language as magical expression or incantation. But this contradiction is more apparent than real. In fact, language as perfect emanation depends on the knowledge of language as construct. This understanding of language is magic without mystery, a clear and apparent magic available when we see that we invent the world as we go.
This text, too, does not escape being a form of myth. To believe it is to believe in a myth. To deny it is to believe in another kind of myth. The mind creates the world as the world creates the mind. Which came first? Neither. Did emptiness come first then? No. In this particular invention, there is no ‘coming first’, for time too is a certain kind of myth.
The mind that reflects in these words was never born.