The living human being

Kusen from Taiun JP Faure – Saturday, March 31^st, 2018

The Zen masters put in first place the totally living human being, rather than the thinking human being.

Master Dôgen writes: “He who has faith in the Buddha Way is convinced that the self is contained in the Way from the beginning.”

Those who sit in zazen seek the totally living state from beginning to end. They have faith in the fact that they have always been in the Way. They are deeply convinced that they are free from all illusory desire, free from all erroneous vision, from all excess, from all insufficiency, from all lack, from all error. They are like all the forms of the universe: a pure existence.

If we are not convinced of this reality, we do not take the right direction.

Of course, we must by ourselves arouse this faith, clarify this direction and follow it. So, here and now, we hold ourselves peacefully, immobile, the head over the shoulders, without letting ourselves be carried away by the discriminating mind or intellectual understanding. Just to experience life, by being totally alive.

Buddha said: “As you are, deep within you, you are perfect.” But most of the time, thoughts revolve around me and mine: “Tell me that I am good… Tell me that you love me…” We brag, we think to give others our best self-image. We come to believe its lies. We do not suspect that we could live without relying on our ordinary greed. We think that wanting is the motor for doing things. It’s because we don’t have faith in the fact that, deep down, there is something that’s totally alive, pure, absolute.

Master Wanshi spoke of zazen as the pivot of Buddha: something turns ceaselessly, nothing is fixed, it’s totally dynamic, it is being born and dying at the same time. This movement, this spontaneous activity is formless, since at the same time it dies and it is born.

To arrive at this original dimension of our ungraspable mind, which is pure wisdom and pure compassion, demands that we do not move a hair, demands also that we do not sleep.

Master Dôgen says: “Mastering one’s mind, not letting it wander in mental agitation or drowsiness, is extremely difficult. Intellect, will, consciousness, memory, imagination, reflection are of no use to reach the original dimension. So, without resorting to these methods, enter the Buddha Way by unifying body and mind.”

To penetrate the Buddha Way, it is enough to renounce all discrimination, all commentary on what appears and disappears. It is enough to unify body and mind, that is to say, to bring the mind back into every point of the body-mind posture, neither slumping, nor too tensed, restless or sleepy, neither in thought nor in non-thought. Do not leave space between the body and mind. Do not leave space for distraction by thoughts or drowsiness.

Dôgen then says: “As soon as compassion holds in respect the flow of discriminating consciounsess, the sound heard and the one who hears are instantly forgotten.”