Kusen from Taiun Jean-Pierre Faure, Thursday, September 22nd , 2016
In zazen, unnecessary tensions must be cast off. On the other hand, imperceptibly, push the ground with the knees, push the sky with the top of the head. That imperceptible tension is the tension of awakening. It is sometimes compared to the young shoots of daffodils piercing the frozen earth in the spring. Without any rigidity.
Maintain a posture that is as right as possible, totally still, exactly vertical, without unnecessary tensions; a posture which freely expresses Buddha’s life, which receives its life from the universe at every moment.
That is the practice of unifying absorption. We absorb every stain, every dysfunctioning. We become united with all things, like a blotting paper absorbing an ink stain. In our case, what is called superfluous, a “stain”, is an inappropriate or excessive mental activity which separates us from unity.
The point is not to create reality, but rather, to let ourself be grabbed by reality. A disorderly mental activity locks us up in a fabricated world, the world of concepts, of conceptions.
Attention to the posture, gentleness, being present to the right posture, are what opens us to the infinite, to the infinity of forms, the ones outside and the ones within.
Offer yourself, bare, to Buddha’s reality. Let go of all your wrong conceptions, all your fabrications.
Without an armour, without protection, let yourself be grabbed by the truth, by the reality of the universe. That requires that you do nothing, or rather, that you do not let any defilement or rigidity settle in. If we do not accept this openness of heart, that is to say, if we don’t let all things go straight to our heart without intervening, it means that we are scheming, we are inventing strategies, we are trying to avoid what we deserve or to obtain what we are not entitled to. We are overwhelmed by toxic flows, by thoughts.
Please, hold yourself straight, immobile, fearless, open with majesty to Buddha’s reality, inside and outside, without separation. When you practice this way – open, in continuity with the whole universe – you solve the problem of life and death.
