Unthinkable, inconceivable

Zen masters say: ‘What we must cherish above all else is the present moment.’ The past no longer exists. The future does not yet exist. The past ends in the present. The future begins in the present. This present moment is that of existence, which is on the frontier – in the mathematical sense – between the past that no longer exists and the future that does not yet exist; it is where there is activity, existence.

It is not a possibility, it is reality – even if we can say: here and now, I remember. It is always here and now. What we must cherish above all else is the present moment. The present moment has the characteristic of being ungraspable.

This absolute present has no duration in time. This is why one speaks of existence without existence. Inconceivable.

Pay total attention, be totally present, with great acuity to the present moment, to existence in the present moment; and at the same time, understand its non-existence.

Inconceivable. Yet deserving all our love.


In the chapter Uji (有時),’Being-time’, Master Dōgen reminds us that existence cannot be dissociated from the eternal, dimensionless present. Unthinkable, inconceivable. Only practicable.

What we, human beings, must cherish more than anything else in the world, is the present moment. It is in this dimensionless moment, between the past that no longer exists and the future that does not yet exist, that there is activity, existence, without existence. Unthinkable. Inconceivable. This is what we must put first in our lives: ultimate reality. How? By paying total attention to the smallest details, while understanding their non-existence.

Everything passes and forever, this is what makes life wonderful. Inconceivable.

When Zen masters speak to us in this way, it is not to make us try to understand. It is above all to prevent us wasting our life on trivialities, to make us put the essential first, and ultimately to make us realize the wonderful awakening.

Inconceivable, unthinkable.

Taiun JP Faure, January 2026