Awakening, beyond thought

When, in silence, every word is forgotten, we are in reality.
It appears clearly before us.

All too often we prefer our dreams to reality. I want. I want to be loved. I don’t want to die. I want. I don’t want… We do nothing but follow our preferences, our aversions — and because of this, we are endlessly tied up in calculations, strategies, all centered on the I, the me, and the mine. And so it is, until the end: we live, confined in a mental bubble, deprived of inconceivable freedom, deprived of the limitless, deprived of the absolute, and therefore, of course, unsatisfied.

When, in silence, every word is forgotten,
every thought abandoned,
this becomes clearly evident

If you are caught up in thoughts, all linked to the satisfaction of your selfishness, you are not in reality. If you are in reality, you are no longer a prisoner of your thoughts.

Freed from confinement within me and mine, at that moment, open to everything, open to everyone, you realize awakening. The posture of zazen manifests this reality. The correct posture manifests great dignity,  great nobility of spirit. Don’t be hunched up. Manifest the majesty of Buddha. Zazen is very difficult for selfish people.

Awakening is not a question of thought; it is to be liberated from thought, present to reality, open to reality, bound by nothing, open to everything. I repeat: awakening is not a question of accumulating knowledge, or of busying the mind with thought. Beyond! Ceaselessly beyond! This is what we chant every morning: gya tei gya tei, hara gya tei, hara sō gya tei. To go beyond, ceaselessly, beyond everything that appears in consciousness, without dwelling on anything.

This is how we recover our life force, how we reconnect with the pure joy of existence.

Taiun JP Faure, October 2026