Yearning for the absolute

Kusen from Taiun JP Faure, Kanshoji, June 2^nd, 2018

We secrete thoughts. With those thoughts, we build theories, we adopt beliefs, we cling to superstitions. We have preferences: we like this, we don’t like that. Our life unfolds in this maze of thoughts, mental constructs, beliefs, superstitions, preferences.

If we are not careful, this mental and psychic activity can affect our freedom, alter our choices, reduce the openness of our heart.

Life is life. Life is sufficient in and of itself.

In zazen, we do not take into account what appears to our consciousness, be it thoughts, points of view, emotions, attachments. It appears and disappears by itself. We return then to something deeper and eternal: pure existence.

In our life, we are bombarded at every instant with a mass of information, more or less true. We are overwhelmed by everything that goes on around us. That’s how we come to live our lives based on our conceptions, our theories, our superstitions. But zazen is situated beyond our habituatual way of functioning: just sitting, without moving before what appears and disappears to consciousness.

This is how we strengthen our vital momentum, not only our energy, but also our aspiration, aspiration to the infinite, to the absolute. This allows life to flow freely, totally, without constraints. Thus we taste pure existence, which is always there, but which, too often, we trample with our comments based on the three poisons: greed, aversion and ignorance.

For that, it suffices to hold ourselves straight, the head on the shoulders, the nape of the neck in alignment with the back, and to let all things come and go without intervening.

In zazen, we give first place to what is. We momentarily abandon our commentaries, our theories, our expectations, our fears.

This experience of zazen has the power to change our lives, step by step, so it must be done without compromise, without concessions, without amenities.