Truth takes its course, no matter what you may think

You may think what you want. You may believe what you want. You have the impression that things are like this, or like that… You may believe that truth can be caught with words, that truth can be locked up in words; but truth takes its course, no matter what you may think.

We all have different points of view, different impressions, different thoughts… But truth is one, it is beyond everything we believe, everything we think, everything we imagine. Our thoughts differ; we can even rise up against one another on the grounds of our different points of view. But truth takes its course; it escapes all attempts at being locked up in words.

You can’t take hold of truth. You can come across reality, experience reality. Truth is reality as it is. As long as we are locked up in our points of view, in our thoughts, in our theories, we cannot find reality as it is. To find reality as it is, we must begin by being as we really are. Then, reality finds reality. Such as we are, we meet with the universe as it is. There is no longer any separation between us and reality.

This is what we try to do in zazen, where we don’t let ourselves be troubled by the thoughts that come to our mind, or by the comments that we would like to make about reality. We keep an open mind, absolutely free. We don’t stop on anything, we don’t analyse anything, we don’t make comments on anything. We approach the as we really are, absolutely free. Then it can be said that we experience reality as it is.

To become a human being as it is, this is the prerequisite that allows us to meet with reality as it is. When we have met with reality as it is, when we have touched, experienced existence as it is, then we can conduct our life without making mistakes. So please, let go of your interpretations, your suppositions, your imagination, your impressions. Remain in the truth of things as they are: go beyond everything that comes up to consciousness again and again, experience pure existence, free from ideology, from conception.

This experience is not optional, it is essential, it determines the entire course of our life, it determines all the choices that we have to make at every moment.

To live with full lucidity is our own responsibility, no one can do it for us. So, whatever is rumoured, whatever theories are going around, whatever the fake news, it is always possible to be clear-headed, that is awakened, awakened to reality as it is.

To live perfectly in tune with reality is not one possibility among so many others, it is a pressing necessity nowadays.

Taiun JP Faure, December 2022