The spirit of the summits

There is a mountain of which the summit stands higher than the other mountains, a mountain of which the summit is hidden from the human eye, a summit wrapped in pure air, free from any pollution, always covered with sparkling snow. This mountain is the mountain of zazen.

It is sometimes called the Mountain with the sublime peak. Sitting on its summit, one can enjoy sublime solitude. Sitting on its summit, the sight is totally unobstructed, from the tip of one’s nose to the bluish mountains in the horizon.

In sublime solitude, everything has cleared up. Everything is clear of trivial preoccupations, of false issues, of questions without answers, of unjustified accusations, free of any expectation.

He who cannot experience sublime solitude is not an adult, he is not complete.

If one is used to brood over strategies, to chew detritus, it is important to distance oneself, to reach the summit that stands higher than the others, where one no longer lies to oneself, where one stops showing off. He who cannot experience sublime solitude does not know how to live with his fellow human beings.

In the sublime solitude, everything has cleared up, everything has become fluid, everything has evaporated, but everything is there. Attachments, rigidity, fixedness are gone. Our points of reference are abandoned. Lost in Buddha. Everywhere, everything is there. At every moment, everything is there.

To be lost in Buddha is not at all derogatory, or sad. It just means to leave the world of our superstitions, of our petty certainty, of our arrogance. Free from everything, attached to nothing.

Wisdom is to be nothing. Love is to be everything. Such is sublime solitude. To reach the unsurpassable summit and then to go down into the human beings’ valley with the spirit of the summits. This is the best way, the happy way to go into the world, the happy way for ourselves and for the others.

Taiun JP Faure, May 2021