It was a glittering, twinkling, lively room full of magnificent machines of light and sound stretching off as far as I could see in every direction. I don’t know how I got there or where I had been before I came, but there I was. The people were animated, acting very excited every time one of the machines lit up, and made noises, rang bells and spewed out small circular pieces of plastic. The people would excitedly pick up the chips and stuff them into their pockets. The noise and commotion whenever this happened meant that everyone close could not help but notice. All would turn and look towards the winning player and the blinking, ringing machine. There was no way not to be affected or react when someone won. For even to choose to ignore the commotion is a reaction, is it not. And there were as many different reactions as there were people. Some would cheer and hug the winning person or move closer to touch them in the hopes that some of the luck might rub off on them. Others would nod and say “good work”. Some seemed upset or angry or jealous and would quickly turn to their machines to feed in their plastic chips and pull the handles hoping that they too might taste that wonderful moment of success. But soon that moment of success was past, only a memory deep inside the players urging them always to return and to feel that surge of winning, of attention, of reward again. And every bell and every light that went off was a constant reminder of how that fleeting feeling in their mind had touched them once and could again.

Somehow it seemed unreal to me, but this was it, so I decided to make the best of it. I wandered all around it, and you know, it never seemed to end. Everywhere I went, behind every wall, through every door, it continued on and on. It was so large, I was told by impeccably dressed gentleman, that if you were to continue in one direction long enough, you’d come right back to same place where you started. It was gigantic, wonderful, mysterious, and amazing. There was food, entertainment, work, all kinds of activity within that wonderful, immense structure they called the casino.

It didn’t take long to figure out what you were supposed to do in the casino. They called it play. Play meant a number of different things-maintaining the machines, teaching the new arrivals about the games, pushing the chips into the machines and pulling the handles, cooking, cleaning, entertaining, buying things, selling things, inventing things, there seemed to be limitless things to play at. The casino thought it was so important for everyone to play that they punished those who didn’t. “Play is the meaning of life in the casino,“ the managers would tell the players, “without play we would all die.“ So they killed anyone who refused to play.

The casino was committed to constant redecorating, everything had to be new, always upgrading, installing the latest craze or game, making sure they had the best looking machines all polished and pretty. I can still remember my first sight: it was indeed stunning, I was overwhelmed by the impact of the activity, the lights, the sounds and the spectacle. All calculated to have immediate emotional impact. I soon learned that that impact was hardly accidental. It was planned, researched, calculated to do just what it did: to be engaging and to elicit the perfect response in the players. But it was not easy, crews of players were always working somewhere, replacing some worn out or unpopular area of the casino and putting up a new front or game to keep the players happy, occupied and challenged. It was truly an amazing place

And then there were the players. They came in all sizes, colors, and types. There seemed to be as many types of people as there were games. The people impressed me. They were all so beautiful, so handsome. And everyone was attractively dressed. Like the decorations in the casino, this was achieved only with considerable effort. Everyone seemed to feel obliged to spend significant time and energy in looking good. When I asked someone about why they spent so much time playing at looking good, they would look at me kind of blankly and say “You have to look good to get ahead.” or “It makes me feel good.“ , “My mother taught me” , “It’s the law of the casino.” Some even said “because I want to.“ but they could never tell me why they wanted to. However no one seemed satisfied with what they looked like or were. Fashions were constantly changing just as the casino was constantly being redecorated. Everyone was constantly thinking about how to improve their appearance: what new fashion to buy, whether to have plastic surgery or not, new teeth, different eye color, liposuction, breast enlargement. To me, there appeared to be endless varieties of emphasis on appearance.

Yes, the people were as fascinated by how they looked to everyone else as they were dedicated to play. And they played hard, at playing, at looking good. My first impression was that there didn’t seem to be very many ways of playing. Everyone seemed obsessed, compelled, possessed whether they were looking good or they were playing. Even those who appeared relaxed on closer examination were obsessed with relaxation. The casino was an active place, full of fun, and purpose. I was happy at my good fortune to end up in the casino and not some other place too horrible to imagine.

Well, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do, but the casino assured me that I was free to play at anything I wanted. This was the casino of opportunity, they said, with a history of accomplishment and progress and a future of unlimited possibilities. It was, they said, without hesitation the richest, wealthiest, strongest, and biggest casino. And as I found out later, it was the only casino.

So I asked for some of those plastic chips so I could get some food and a place to rest. “Ah, a new arrival” they said, “ you have to play first. That’s the way you get the chips,“ they told me. Now is not the time to tell of my adventures growing up in the casino, except to say that I tried playing at alot of different things. I was a cook, a dishwasher, a mechanic, a contractor, a designer, a driver, a filmmaker, a disk jockey, a writer, a teacher, a manager and an engineer just to name a few.

For a while each new job was interesting, as I learned how to do it. But once I learned how to do it, I wanted to change it, to make it better. Usually I felt the job could be eliminated in some way and I thought that was a good goal to shoot for. The casino didn’t like that. I was told:” the purpose of the casino is to make more jobs so more can play, not eliminate jobs. What would people do if they couldn’t play. They would be playless, without purpose.” I suppose the same would hold true for the casino: without players the casino wouldn’t be a casino. The casino seemed unable to conceive of anything that it couldn’t conceive of and if it could conceive of something it must be somehow part of the casino’s vast operations. “If something new of value comes along, we’ll incorporate it into the casino. We change, we grow, we adapt, we welcome new things, new looks, new ways of playing, we want change”, said the leaders. Yes, there had been change, great changes in the casino, endless change: new and fancier machines, flying carpets that could whisk each player anywhere in the casino in a matter of minutes, new fashions, new games, and many more things. It was changing so fast sometimes it was hard to keep up.

Change brought new games, new players, new fashions. But the process of change never seemed to touch anything below the surface No matter what, there was always the casino itself, behind the scenes, making everything work. While appearances were constantly changing, the casino itself was only changing in ways that wouldn’t change itself, that would never change itself.

I listened to everyone and anyone who could offer suggestions on what I should do with my life in the casino. Many professed to have the answer. Be rich. Know the right people. Know thyself. Love thy neighbor. Get married. Raise a family. Charity work. A good job. Own your own business. Be an artist. Go back to nature. Travel. Drugs. Sex. Music. God. The devil. Astral projection. Meditation. Gurus. Galas. Yin yang. I Ching. Holograms. Chaos. I searched. I studied. I was driven. I gave up. You name it, I tried it. I read books, studied history, went to meetings, talked with people, until I learned. I learned what I call the lesson of the casino.

I learned that everything I found, everything I learned, everything I knew, everything I was, was no different than the casino in which I played, lived and would die. That everything that happened in the casino, everything the casino allowed, everything it encouraged, even those things the casino prohibited, outlawed or punished were reflected in me. . Everywhere I looked I saw the casino. My mind reeled (not realed). You see, I saw that even my mind was permeated by the casino, by the basic rules of the casino, by the assumptions of the casino by the very processes that perpetuated the casino. While I wasn’t the casino, the casino was outside me, all around me, inside, I was just like the casino in every way.

And with this in mind I looked at the casino again with new eyes. Have you noticed how the casino deals with time. It’s as if time doesn’t really exist, that it is somehow unreal or meaningless except for some limited purposes determined by the casino alone. Oh, it uses time to its advantage in its casino-like way. There are times to play at play and times to play at looking good. But on the whole most of the time is kind of boring, artificial, purposeful or mechanical. Each day is pretty much the same, as is each week, each month, each year. And have you noticed how the present exists primarily in the future? That’s when the really good stuff happens, that’s when everyone is happy, peaceful, and satisfied. The future is when everyone catches up with the Jones’s, when you won’t have to play quite so much or hard, when you have enough chips to play more only the games you want as much as you want. The future is when every problem, every contradiction, every doubt, every injustice of the present is solved.

It took me a long time before I noticed there were no doors either into or out of the casino, all doors always went to other rooms in the casino. The casino was constructed in such a way that there was only more casino beyond every wall. Some had tried to find an external wall, but none had been found. The casino called such play futile and ignored players who persisted, calling them kooks. So fewer and fewer people even thought about it or wondered about it and instead most players focused on redecorating, playing or looking good.

No one could tell me and no one seemed to know if there was anything real outside the casino, or even if there was an outside, and if there was, if there was something out there worth doing.

The casino says that there is nothing that the casino cannot understand or do. That all is needed is dedication by the players. While the casino does not admit or deny the existence of anything outside, it does affirm its ability to deal with it, whatever it is.

In time, I realized that the casino is completely closed to the outside, didn’t understand or wonder about what the outside is or might be. It is the way of the casino that cannot conceive of any other way besides its way, with its rules, rewards, and opportunities. In fact the casino thinks that it can control everything, understand everything, be everything, and make everything conform to its desires. The casino will use all its resources, its players, itself to continue being what it is. Any and all threats to its existence will be invalidated, or absorbed then reformed to be consistent with the casino’s basic principles of compulsive play and emphasis on looking good or attacked and presumably destroyed, repressed or subjugated. Any threat to its principles is perceived as a threat to the casino’s very existence.

The casino has answers for every question. In good times there are no questions. In distressing times, the leader say, “there is nothing to fear but fear itself.” The casino and its wonderful, dedicated players will answer any challenge and prove that the casino‘s way is the best way. After all it is the casino that gives the players purpose, provides for their every need, protects them and provides reassurance when they doubt and answers when they ask.

But I know there is more than the casino. Outside, unknown, marvelous, mysterious and wonderful. They are obvious to all who care to notice. One is life, that mysterious process that creates all beings. But even now the casino is striving to conquer life, to subdue its mystery, eliminate its unknowns, to understand, to control, to direct, to use and maybe even make new games out of it.

And that fact, the mystery of life, confirmation that there is more, somehow sustains me, sustains me in the face of my contradictory feelings, feelings of both fear and longing, of certainty and doubt. That fact sustains me in spite of everything that denies that anything more exists. And finally, I know now there is an alternative to the slow death I face in the casino.

But is there really a choice? Is there a choice between the casino and the unknown, the outside, something more. As I look around the casino, I see my self reflected everywhere. The casino molded me, molded my mind, entertained me, rewarded me, punished me, and taught me. And I responded by imitating all I saw, playing compulsively, pursuing the rewards, accepting its assumptions implicitly, believing in what it said was good and hating what it said was bad. But the good and the bad in the casino I see reflected in me. And the limitations, the prejudices, the contradictions of the casino are also in me. I see what the casino will do to continue its control, to ensure that while the surface may change the core remains. The casino is a house of mirrors where its reflections are obsessed with their reflection and no one knows what a mirror is. So do I have a choice? Can I choose other than myself, other than the principles and processes that are the casino that are in me.

And I am afraid that every option I conceive of leads back to the casino with its self perpetuating, closed, entropic processes. And I am afraid of the unknown, of letting go, of stepping outside into that void beyond the wall. I am afraid my mind will trick me, lie to me, do anything to hang on to the known, even fool me for a while into thinking I have escaped from the casino. I am afraid I am trapped.

But if I do find my way to the outside, what then? Convincing myself to truly step into the unknown when seemingly safer alternatives are available, is a futile task. Profound change is a process born only of absolute necessity, when death is moving to consume you if you don’t change. Change of this type is not for the faint hearted or the satisfied. It is a change born of complete discontent.

What to do? Is that the right question? Should it be: What should I think? Or what should I be? Or how can I achieve freedom? Is there a right question? or answer? Aren’t we trapped and limited by the language we use, the language we think with, the language of the casino. Won’t all questions lead to answers that lead nowhere but back to where you began. Like a maze where you can never be truly lost because all paths lead back to the same place in the maze.

What to do? Action or non action, both are still forms of doing. Doing things is like taking a roller coaster ride, it can be a hell of a ride but once you‘re done you get off at the same place you got on,

And I think to myself: what if I succeed? What about when I find that external wall and bust thru to the void outside the casino, and I come back to show it to others? What would happen then? Could I change the very process of change of the casino?

Well, I think I know what would happen. The people (for they are the casino, even though they might not think so) would come to see the void and to wonder. But they would not stop just at wondering, they would wonder about what to do. There would be great excitement in the casino over this new thing and how it should be used or not used and how it fits and whether it is good or bad. It would be a breath of fresh air.

And for a moment, a very special moment, a moment like the moment when you see something for the first time, with new eyes, and an open mind, with no expectations or preconceptions, the moment when the past, present and future are the same, when all possibilities exist simultaneously, equally and completely, for that moment, creation waits. Such moments are full of energy . And this energy will flood the casino and all the players and everyone will be alive, truly alive for just a moment.

And then? The casino will do as it has always done, as it will do always, as it must. The casino will use that void to build more rooms, to expand. Some of the rooms will be quite extraordinary, even beautiful or imaginative or comfortable. And in the middle, they will preserve a small section of that wonderful empty space, to commemorate the finding of that mysterious void outside the casino. And it will be called the room of the empty space. And people will come to view the room, to study it, and to marvel at and be proud of the casino that has such wonders in it.

You see, the casino can’t tolerate empty or useless things. It can’t tolerate a void or the unknown. Ask yourself, isn’t that so? Don’t you feel the same way?