The daughters play with a magician's set they got as a present a while back. All kinds of magic tricks, one more grand than the other, are played out. Some tricks are directly from the magician's manual, and some arise spontaneously in the heat of the moment. The creative force in the daughters' magical ideas is unrivaled, and the laughter and joy they express are highly contagious. It seems like the purpose of the moment is not at all to succeed in the magic tricks but to have a good laugh.
The younger daughter enthusiastically calls the parents to see a coin trick she has just mastered. She's obviously proud of how she learned it from the magician's manual and added a few twists of her own to it. Like experienced magicians do, she elegantly carries the situation forward and explains what happens. She puts a yellow plastic coin in a small box that is barely bigger than the coin. Then, she pierces the box with tiny daggers. After removing the daggers, she pulls the coin out from the box unharmed. The trick is very short and simple from an adult's point of view, yet pure magic in the child's eyes. Luckily, one's mind is prone to see mystery in such simple things. This time, the yellow plastic coin acts as a trigger for an inquiry into reality.
A simple coin represents a curious kind of dualism, in which two sides of existence fulfill each other. This dualism can be seen in practically everything. Someone is rich only because another is poor. Allies would not exist if there were no enemies. Hot can be defined only through its mutual scale with cold. Soft is a sensation that arises when the fingertips touch something hard. A bowl can be full only because it holds within a possibility of being empty. The same dualism also extends to more abstract phenomenons. Can there be right without wrong or good without evil? How about trying to define the future without the past? Could anything be here if something else didn't simultaneously exist there? It's impossible to define light without darkness or noise without silence. Nothing emerges by itself. After a short moment of sincere observation, it becomes undeniably clear that all existence is entirely relative.
Many things that arise mutually are not quite real but only imagination in the hidden corners of the human mind. The present moment—everything that is here and now—is the closest approximation of reality. What, then, arises mutually with the present moment? What lies on the other side of that particular coin? This question can be answered in many ways, but only one conclusion is definite. There cannot be a present moment without something witnessing it. Better call this something the self, since it doesn't have an actual name, nor can it be truthfully named even if one tried to. The self is not the mind-made 'I' which chaotically appears, disappears, and changes along with the temporary phenomenons of thought and emotion. Any direct sensation of an individual 'I' is only imaginary and unessential tension, an unconscious refusal to accept the present moment. Instead, the self defines the very essence of the present moment, in the same way as water defines a river and air defines wind. They are one. Everything, including every single human being, is an expression of the dance of the present moment and the self—what is and the one who's witnessing what is. No matter what experiences the present moment bestows, one can remain peacefully assured that just around the coin's edge, there's something that has already made one whole.
The younger daughter delivers her coin trick with great joy and concentration. The performance isn't perfect. It doesn't need to be perfect. Ultimately, it's not relevant whether it's heads or tails—both sides of the yellow plastic coin express the whole in their own unique way, and without one, the other could not be. After this realization, there's nothing else left but to have a good laugh. Therein lies the timeless wisdom of existence.
