Making the decision

Bodhisattvas pray before the suffering of human beings. They pray before those who have no other way out of suffering than to burn their lives. Some even commit suicide. The artist Serge Gainsbourg, who smoked three packets of cigarettes a day, said with a bitter smile: ‘Each cigarette is a nail in my coffin.’ The bodhisattva prays before the suffering of those who are lost – lost in suffering, with no way out.

An artist like Albert Camus said: ‘A human being stops himself’. He stops himself from doing evil. But how?

Some religions attack the vital impulse. There is something anti-life and destructive about that. The Buddhas, on the other hand, say: ‘Access sublime solitude’.

Know that beyond all our dysfunctions, we are Buddha. There is nothing to burn, nothing to destroy. All we have to do is embark on the path that keeps all demons at bay – the path where we taste sublime solitude and peace of mind.

To do this, we have to understand that not everything that appears to our consciousness is meant to be followed, and then make the firm decision to let it pass. These phenomena that appear to consciousness are like the excrement of past lives; they must be abandoned. Just live a simple, sober life. A life that is deeply oneself.

It is because of a lack of faith that we run around, gesticulate and grab everything that comes our way. We have to aim for what we deeply are. Aim for the true mind – in the Diamond Sutra, it says : ‘The true mind is one that clings to nothing.

If you do not want to make that decision to be silent and let the light in, then have the courage to live in hell.

Taiun JP Faure, October 2024