The Perfection of Reality
The word, perfection, has become a toxic word. It is loaded with so much expectation that any free understanding of this word becomes very difficult. To have freedom means, does it not, to be able to observe without fear or pleasure. There are no strings attached, not the driving quality of attraction or aversion, so that one is able to look at something with simple eyes, without the habitual motive or calculation.
Now, how do we understand perfection? Is perfection, for most of us, a certain standard? I might think to be perfect means to have an extraordinarily strict routine, or to have a strict diet, or to have a healthy body, whatever we think that word health means. But, he might think differently. She might think differently still. To the politicians, perfection might mean perfectly obedient citizens. To the intellectuals, perfection might mean the power over the mind, the ability to control thought to conduct research or investigation. To the sportsman, perfection might mean total control of the body, the muscles, the intentions. We all have some idea of what perfection means. But what is it actually?
What is actual, which means that what happens in our daily life, is that we control. Through control, we want perfection. Perfection is never here, because if it is here, there would be no need to control. Perfection is to be pursued. Perfection is the ideal, the frontier. That is how this word can have any power. When perfection is realized, which it never is, it loses power altogether. So, is perfection a trick? Is it a trick of the mind to keep the mind churning, working, yet totally ignorant to the fact, that there might be no path to perfection at all?
When we observe our mind, we can see that perfection is only an idea. It is a standard, and the standard is in the mind. The standard might be learned from others, in schools, or inherited through tradition or biology, but it is still in the mind. Without the idea of perfection, then what is perfection? When we observe without the idea, what is the actual?
When one observes without the idea, the standard, then the perfection of reality is obvious. It needs no thought to operate, no will to function, no standard to exist. The water flows. The birds fight and depart. The sun rises and shines on all things. Thoughts and feelings arise and fall. All things happen without the mind's control. Yet, the mind, ignorant to reality, is imprisoned by its own idea, so it is caught in the division between perfection and imperfection, which are projections of the mind. Without this division, perfection is. There is no path to perfection, because any path means division, means the process and the result, the practice and the goal, the present and the future. Perfection is the ending of division. Without division, conflict cannot flower, so that everything flows in its utmost beauty and spontaneity. The mind is the maker of conflict. The free understanding of the mind, from moment to moment, is perfection.
Cover photo by Aman Upadhyay on Unsplash
