I was at a meditation retreat one time – nine days of alternating between sitting meditation and walking meditation, with daily instruction and Dharma talks, or lectures about Buddha’s teachings and how to apply them to your life.
During one of the Dharma Talks teacher Eugene Cash quoted Suzuki Roshi (founder of the San Francisco Zen Center) on the nature of enlightenment. He said “Realization is imperfection without anxiety.”
Realization is imperfection without anxiety.
Those words struck me. They echo a theme I frequently come back to with a simplicity that I greatly admire. I’m always talking about self-compassion, and this may be the best definition I’ve heard.
Truth is we’re not perfect. Our work isn’t perfect. Our relationships aren’t perfect. Our lives are just plain not perfect. Unfortunately, this is a difficult truth for a lot of people.
The Holidays are approaching (In my world it starts with Halloween). I’m often struck by the number of people who get so grievously stressed because they feel like they needed the holidays to be perfect and they can’t achieve whatever that is.
After all, perfection is not achievable.
Sure, many of us give great lip-service to the idea that we’re not perfect, while at the same time suffering the symptoms of some form of perfectionism, i.e. imperfection with anxiety.
I confronted this a lot during the days and nights of the retreat. The form of meditation I practice is simple (that’s one of the things I like about it). But it can also be difficult, depending on the degree to which I accept the imperfection of my meditation practice.
In this practice, you focus on your breathing – very simple – except that the mind isn’t really interested in doing that. The mind prefers to wander all over the place, rehashing conversations from days, weeks, months, years ago, contemplating the future, playing music, wondering about the cat – basically anything and everything.
So, in meditation, when you notice the mind has wandered away, you simply bring your focus back to your breathing. Sometimes this happens quickly. Sometimes I notice I’ve been lost in some sort of imagined scenario for quite some time, and then come back to my breathing. The instruction is to do this firmly, but gently and without rebuke.
Some meditations can be relatively relaxed and quiet. Some are like having a brightly lit kindergarten class with Souza marches playing in my head. And on retreat there are the standard aches and pains that go long with long periods of sitting meditation (mostly my back starts to hurt).
Often when I notice this happening, I just refocus and it’s no big deal. But sometimes I also experience the feeling that I’m somehow doing it wrong. My thinking mind reinforces this with thoughts like ‘I’m not a good meditator, I’m messing this up, I can’t get it right, I’m wasting my time and money on this retreat,’ and so on. Then it starts reviewing all the other things I feel like I don’t get right in my life.
A few minutes of this can lead to frustration and depression – imperfection with anxiety.
Then something shifted about half way through the retreat. I started contemplating Suzuki Roshi’s message – imperfection without anxiety. The more I contemplated this, the easier my meditations got, the more I relaxed.
Sure I was still having the standard aches and pains. Sometimes it was all I could do to just sit still. Sometimes I couldn’t even do that. My mind continued to wander around, as is its function.
But I didn’t really care so much. I just kept repeating like a mantra “imperfection without anxiety.”
I also realized I can look around at my whole life and do the same thing – imperfection without anxiety. I can apply this anywhere that my mind says I should be dissatisfied – I don’t have enough to do, or I’m too busy, my home needs repair, my kitchen is messy, this or that thing is or isn’t happening the way I want it to. (Note: the thinking mind may say you should be dissatisfied, but that doesn’t mean you actually should be dissatisfied)
In other words, it’s not perfect. It’s never been perfect, and the chances are it’s not going to be perfect. The question is: can I be okay with that. Can you?
What if we all decided today that we’re okay the way we are – not in spite of our imperfection of our lives, but with the imperfection of our lives. What if we could accept our imperfection without anxiety. What would that be like? It’s worth contemplating.