The absolute political act

To take the right posture, one needs be very delicate, with careful attention, total commitment. To take matters in hand without harming oneself. Some people are casual or arrogant enough to believe that they are beyond this practice. In the end, they neglect the most important thing.

To take the right posture of the body-mind, one needs to forget oneself. To forget oneself means to clean off everything that is unnecessary, to drop everything that is unnecessary. This delicate posture, without unnecessary tension, is the posture of the daffodils in spring piercing through the frozen soil. Such is the tension of awakening, without tension.

This right tension occurs when body and mind are unified, when the attention settles on every point of the posture. In those moments, the body is consciousness. Descartes said: “I think therefore I am.” I do not know exactly what he meant. In Zen, beyond thinking, there is consciousness. Consciousness is opened to the infinite. Consciousness is not something, it is a state of mind. The mind does not stop on anything particular, but it embraces totality, it is present to totality.

To attain a vast and boundless consciousness, without defilement, this is the most absolute political act. To get our thoughts out of the rut they are in. To come out of our obsessions. To take a new look at the world, without accusation, without arrogance. This is what mankind needs today to take the right turn, to find the way at the end of the dead end.

Such is the true and authentic spiritual practice, the practice that leads body and mind beyond all our erroneous points of view.

To open one’s heart is to go to the depths of our reality, to get to what we truly are. The body is what is deepest. When there is no body, there is no consciousness. To get to this point where body and mind are in unity, where the mind is cleansed from all erroneous conceptions, where we become aware of reality as it is, where we become aware of our most hidden dysfunctions, where we constantly go beyond what we believe, beyond all superstitions.

I say it again, this is the most absolute political act. It is not easy, but it is not difficult either. To come back to the earth of the mind. Earth is humus. The earth of the mind is to go back to true humility, to the original mind.

To change the way we look at the world. To cleanse our mind from all erroneous points of view, from all erroneous conceptions. To realize this change in our mind is to change the world.

Taiun JP Faure, September 2020