Pin the tail on the donkey.

You’ve been playing it your whole life.

But what you didn’t realise is that there is no donkey, just a load of tails.

A tail is a characteristic, let’s say “anxious” and the donkey is what you call “me”.

Now first of all this “anxious” characteristic has been created. It’s a creation of that “ultimate creative universal energy” just like a tree is or a bird, or our friend up there in the picture.

You did not create it and you are not responsible for it.

What happens though is that a mechanism running in your brain claims the label “anxious” and seemingly pins it onto “you”.

The “anxious” tail is seemingly pinned on the donkey “you”.

Now the mechanism in your brain uses the “anxious” label to define the “you” and you will think and feel “I am anxious, I am an anxious person”.

The illusion is complete and the magician takes a bow.

But if you look at it carefully, you will be able to see through the illusion.

There will be a huge number of these tails seemingly pinned all over the donkey “you”. They will be both positive and negative labels.

They are all used by the mechanism running in your brain to define and describe the donkey “you”. They seemingly give it substance and make it appear to be real.

Now here’s the trick.

The tails are all real and are labels and descriptions pointing to actual characteristics that are present in your body/mind system, but the donkey “you” is not anywhere to be found.

Take a look for yourself. Try and find the donkey.

Is it there?

Or do you just find a collection of tails, giving the appearance of a donkey?