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Welcome friends and thank you for tuning in. I'd like to start this talk with a story.

There was a magician who was traveling through a region. He was going from town square to town square

and he'd astonish people with his magic. He had this capacity to be able to point to things with his finger,

a shovel, a book, a hat, and it would turn to gold.

So the final show of the day, everyone's applauding completely wowed by his powers except one boy.

And this boy had been carrying a stick, he'd been playing but he stopped.

And he'd been fully attentive to the whole show but never clapped.

And in the end, everyone went home except this boy and the magician pointed to the stick and turned it to gold.

And the boy had no reaction, he didn't say anything. So the magician pointed to his shoelaces, his belt, turned them to gold.

Again, the boy was just kind of noticing. And then he asked, what's wrong?

You're the richest in town. Why aren't you happy? What is it you want?

And the boy said, what I want is the magic finger.

So what does that mean to have the magic finger?

You know, we think we want the prize, you know, the money, the made, the accomplishment, the security,

maybe even the feeling of pleasure, of happiness, of ease.

We fixate on the prize and we lose sight of the source of all that we cherish,

which is presence, the open-hearted presence that's possible right here and now.

So the gateway to that presence is the magic finger.

The gateway is our capacity to mindfully witness what's going on right here in this moment.

You know, on the bottom of my computer, I have a sticky note, you know, I'm still very non-digital in certain ways.

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