Although of Protestant culture by his mother and Catholic by his father, Clément Sans grew up in a secular world. He did not make his communion, does not go to mass and is not even baptized. Yet religion is part of his mental landscape. She has always intrigued him. Especially when his grandmother recounts the great deeds of resistance of certain Protestants in a small village in Beauce.
But Clément ensures: “My spiritual research was independent because I had not inherited any family practice. ” It was through literature and philosophy that he began to take an interest in these subjects. He discovers the connection that exists between the West and Japan through Heidegger and the Kyoto school. To this can be added his readings by René Guénon (1886-1951), an esoteric thinker and, as part of his master’s degree in town planning, by Augustin Berque, a geographer specializing in Japan, which invite his gaze to turn to the East.
“It was first of all the philosophy that pushed me to question Buddhism in depth, but I could not be satisfied with a purely literary and intellectual approach”, he says. He multiplied his meetings from 2015: he spoke with Sufi masters in Paris and got closer to mystical Catholic friends. In Grenoble, where he studied, he was initiated into Freemasonry. In Avignon, where he goes for work, Clément attends a Greek Orthodox church – the opportunity to interact with a priest who divides his life between Provence and Mount Athos.
Japan, “the most incomprehensible country in the world”
The young man is looking for his way. But he then fails to resonate with the spiritualities in which he is interested. “There is an excess of sentimentality in Christianity which, if harnessed, can be a strength. But it is also a great risk. This heightened sentimentality does not exist at all in Buddhism ”, he believes. “It is the most distant spiritual path for Westerners and Japan is the most incomprehensible country in the world”, maintains Clément, who decides to approach it.
In 2017, he started practicing at zen dojo in Paris, rue de Tolbiac. He is introduced to a very radical and very pure approach, centered only on meditation, which immediately seduces him. “It is a meditation without objective, without praise, without request”, he describes. The general atmosphere and the contact with people force his decision. In 2018, he left for Japan on a student visa. He landed in Kyoto, a city known for its great concentration of temples. He takes Japanese lessons in a language school, becomes a tourist guide to earn a living.
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