(This is Part 1 of a series.)
I wish I could write something beautiful and meaningful about imperfection, because in a way it's just the coolest subject there is.
You know, now and then these great human minds of ours get the idea that if we could just do this a little better and adjust that a little bit that...
...we'd never be rejected by anyone ever;
...every wish, project or intention that we took on would succeed;
...everyone would always appreciate us all the time;
...we'd never make any more mistakes;
...we'd be uniformly kind, conscious and in control;
...we'd always be a perfect model of equanimity;
...and, the cherry on the sundae, we'd be joyous every second.
The thing is, though, that such super-humanness would be inhuman. Our glory, really, is our very imperfection. The world's glory, really, is its imperfection. I realize that that can sound a bit crazy, or maybe just hopelessly naive.
But maybe...Perfection itself hides behind this facade of "imperfection" in the world.
There's something intensely beautiful about imperfection. Though I can't explain it very well—if at all—I think all sentient beings have the capacity to sense it.
This can sound like a romanticizing of the harshness in the world. Yet there is no denial here of the harshness that can be found in the world, the cruelty and misfortune and pain that sometimes appears. It's just that something much deeper is behind it, around it, under it, within it.
The paradox I sense but can't really explain is that if the world were more "perfect"—according to our human ideas of what "perfection" would be—that somehow it would actually be far less perfect than it is.
In this view, reality is perfect now; and its perfection is exactly its imperfection. Not that it will get there some day, but that perfection is already embodied right now in imperfection. Yes, I'm ready for the nice people in the white coats.
But so are we all. Deep in our hearts, I sense that "we" all somehow know that it's true. Reality is always right. If we're disappointed in something, it's as it should be. If we're fearful, confused, melancholy, angry or whatever, it's as it should be. Even if we die tonight, it's as it should be. Even if the world dies tonight, it's as it should be.
When we perceive the perfection of that—that undesirable state, that undesirable situation, even that undesirable life—a kind of alchemy happens, a transformation of lead into gold. That undesirable state or situation or life then itself becomes the very perfection, not because it changes, but because something within us changes.
(This doesn't mean that things never change. Things change all the time, except when they don't.)
Paradoxically, too, we actually become more effective in doing whatever it is that we think we're doing. Because we approach whatever-it-is from a more relaxed place.
Now we're no longer wishing that somehow it or them or things-in-general would be different. And yet they are different somehow. Things tend to become more fluid, more workable, even though we're no longer insisting that they become so.
Now we want it—the state of mind, the situation, the world—to just be whatever it wants to be in this moment. This moment, this situation, this state of mind—whatever it wants to be. Whatever It wants to be.
Then Perfection once again shows His face, shows Her true identity, shows Its presence in all situations and circumstances and events.
Perhaps it's the very imperfection of the world and of ourselves that causes our heart to break open. So-called "perfection" can't do that. When things go as we think they "should" we simply feel gratified or thrilled. But somehow, the secret door stays closed.
It's when we fall in love with the very imperfection of the world, the very imperfection of ourselves, our situation, the world's situation—that something breaks open.
And then, in the very midst of that hopeless imperfection, a flower opens. An impossible, improbable flower shows its face, right there, bending in the breeze.
(This is the end of Part 1. Go to Part 2.)
—jim sloman, 6.14.05
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