Who is the great magician that makes the grass green?

“Who’s the great magician that makes the grass green?” Is the roughly how the Zen riddle goes.

The answer, when I first heard it, took me a while to comprehend.

The answer: it’s you interacting with the grass that makes it appear green to you.

You are the great magician.

It’s a transaction of you and the grass interacting, then your mind subjectively processing this interaction to conclude the grass appears green to you.

To quote Lon Milo DuQuette:

“All things we perceive in the cosmos, including ourselves, are aspects of consciousness within the matrix of matter.”

(Note how I said the grass appears green to you, not the grass is green.)

“The grass is green” indicates an absolute belief. An irrefutable argument to the True Believer.

“The grass appears green to me” indicates relative thinking. Maybe it’s green, maybe it’s not. It just appears green to me.

Because of our experiences, education and language, most of us agree that grass does appear to be green. This is our consensus reality tunnel. We all agree on common aspects of perception to help each other get through the day.

But just because we agree doesn’t make it an absolute in the universe. The greenness is still relative to our interaction, and our processing of that interaction with the grass, relative to our position in space time.

Same goes for the rest of the world, not just grass.

Our common agreement on what we perceive – our consensus reality – can trick us into believing all kinds of things. What’s real, what’s true, what’s right and what’s wrong.

It’s useful to remember these are subjective illusions relative to an individual’s reality.

It’s just when groups of people agree on a reality, it appears more “real” to others and can be easier to enter, but harder to leave.

~George