We hoped that something would move, that all of humanity would realize that everything is interconnected and that they would act together to change things, but only powerlessness answered us. It was neither the melting ice, nor the angry crowd, nor the thousands of refugees stranded at our borders that could stop the machine, but a micro-organism, a virus. The Covid-19 took us by surprise and we find ourselves in a situation of extreme vulnerability. For the first time in human history, we are all feeling the same at the same time and something is waking up. Impermanence is a forgotten reality which, if felt in one's heart, in one's flesh, can transform everything.
The lesson of Fukushima
Exactly nine years ago, I was in Japan during the Fukushima earthquake and nuclear explosion. The first hours after the earthquake put us all in a state of unknown physical and psychological stress, and as the aftershocks continued to shake the earth every four hours, a possible tsunami was announced in Tokyo Bay. I took my passport, a duvet, some money, some water, then I climbed the highest hill in Kamakura. I found a handful of people with whom we began to wait. After several hours, the deep feeling of not being in my place assailed me, I realized that I could not spend my life being afraid of losing it, because that prevented me from living it! I came down from my mountain and went where my heart called me, to those I loved in a café on the beach. I have never had the feeling of being so alive as at the edge of this potentially dangerous beach. In the heart of uncertainty, facing the sea.
“I contemplate the world without me. » Alexandre Jollien
A few weeks ago when the virus was announced, I felt the same panic, the fear of lack, the urgency of having to protect myself and then I sat down.
Where to find the marvelous existence?
Except when vigilance dispels confusion.
This is the way of silence and clarity
The Root of Outer Detachment and Inner Subtlety (1)
Zazen, meditation without an object. A framework, that of the axis open to the unknown, of an elongated back without tension, of free breathing, of a mind which no longer seeks anything to reach, which no longer seeks to solve, which no longer seeks not even to calm down or calm down. The contemplative sitting of the method without method, the way of the contemplation of silence nicely expressed by Alexandre Jolien: "I contemplate the world without me". Yes, this virus makes us feel in our flesh and our hearts how much we are all connected, whether by a postilion or a stock market, what moves in one place affects everyone.
To explore the contemplation of uncertainty is to return to the heart of our existence, vivre what is, as it is.
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