Leaves of Perfection

[Daniel E.]

Leaves of Perfection
Psych Central blog: 360 Degrees of Mindful Living
By Pavel G. Somov, Ph.D.

When I say – in my writings – that the present is perfect, I am not being metaphorical. I mean this in the most literal sense. Each and every moment of life is all that it can be, i.e. the best that it can be. That is perfection. No, not that theoretical, unattainable, hypothetical, imaginary, abstract, naively-idealistic perfection that we have been all conditioned to chase, but an immediate, concrete, practical, realistically-inevitable, ordinary perfection of all that is.

Perfection, as I see it, isn’t a fantasy of what could be, but a reality of what is. I am, of course, not alone in this worldview; I am not the first mind to have this sentiment. This perspective dates way back.

Here’s how it is phrased in Dzogchen Buddhism:

Everything is pure and spontaneously accomplished from the outset

Dzogchen (ancient teaching of “natural perfection”), according to Lama Surya Das, is “the summit” of all Buddhist teachings. Here’s another Dzogchen proclamation about the perfection of reality, attributed to 14th century Dzogchen master Longchenpa:

Since things are perfect and complete just as they are, beyond good and bad, without adopting and rejecting, one just bursts out laughing!

Monks are poets. And poets are monks. Here’s Walt Whitman for you, in a Dzogchen moment of acceptance, in his Leaves of Grass:

And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present, and can be none in the future…​

Or here’s Whitman, echoing the same sentiment, in “Song of Myself:”
​

There… will never be any more perfection than there is now.

Seeing present as perfect is a baseline of awe. I remember a not too distant time when I myself was a classic perfectionist, sometimes seeing faults, sometimes seeing areas for improvement, but always seeing the potential of what could be while being blind to the perfection of what is. Now, this reality-rejectionist has been reborn as a reality-acceptionist, more interested in the obscure poetry of reality than in rhyming verses of imaginary potentials.

The usual approach to treating perfectionism is palliative symptom-management: a perfectionist is clinically persuaded that the consequences of the mistakes aren’t all that devastating; he/she is offered to let go of his/her perfectionistic expectations of self or others. The bottom-line is that the therapist, just like the perfectionist, continues to subscribe to the notion that perfection is unattainable and therefore should not be so vigorously pursued.

My approach is entirely different. My approach is that of Walt Whitman. My clinical goal is to show “that there is no imperfection in the present, and can be none in the future…” and to show that “there… will never be any more perfection than there is now.”

In others words, my approach is to show that not only perfection is attainable, but to show that perfection is inevitable.

There are many different paths that I take to accomplish this (Western logic, Nondual logic, epistemology, Logotherapy-style meaning formulations, Gestalt-like experiential exercises), but there are, of course, verbal short-cuts.

Ask yourself: “Does Reality short-change?”

If your answer is “no,” if it is self-evident to you that the Reality – at any given point in time – is all that it can be, that is fully maxed out and cannot be otherwise, if it is self-evident to you that there is no other Reality at any given point in time, and therefore whichever Reality exists – at present – is the “right” one…

Then ask yourself this: “Am I a sub-set of this Reality?”

If your answer is a self-evident “of course,” then conclude that you too do not short-change, that you too are doing the best that you can, always have and always will, as long as you are alive.

Short-cuts – just like sudden opportunities – favor prepared minds. If this line of thought is not necessarily self-evident to you, then you will have to go on a longer journey of self- and reality-acceptance. Perhaps, a book-long journey.

Be well, life-walker.

ps:

Reality is sowing leaves of perfection not just in autumn. Gather them all. Perfection is mind’s natural season.

References:
Natural Radiance: Awakening to Your Great Perfection (Lama Surya Das)
Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass
Present Perfect (P. Somov)

Pavel Somov, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist and the author of Eating the Moment (New Harbinger, 2008), Present Perfect (NH, 2010), and The Lotus Effect (NH, 2010), "Smoke Break" (in press, 2011), and "Reinventing the Meal" (in press, 2012). He is in private practice in Pittsburgh, PA.

 

[Yuray]

When I say – in my writings – that the present is perfect, I am not being metaphorical. I mean this in the most literal sense. Each and every moment of life is all that it can be, i.e. the best that it can be. That is perfection.

Can someone explain this to me in plain English...............it sounds like perfection can be painful at times.

My approach is entirely different. My approach is that of Walt Whitman. My clinical goal is to show “that there is no imperfection in the present, and can be none in the future…” and to show that “there… will never be any more perfection than there is now.”

Walt Whitman suffered a stroke and lost his mother and got depressed in the same year. How does that equate with him saying "there will never be anymore perfection than there is now", referring to the 'present'? What am I missing?

When I say – in my writings – that the present is perfect, I am not being metaphorical. I mean this in the most literal sense. Each and every moment of life is all that it can be, i.e. the best that it can be. That is perfection.

When I read things like this I can't help but think of new age pandering. A person thinking about suicide cannot be experiencing the moment as 'the best that it can be'.
If I have misinterpreted the whole post, would someone please explain what it really means?

 

[Daniel E.]

I think this is the heart of the article:

If it is self-evident to you that there is no other Reality at any given point in time, and therefore whichever Reality exists – at present – is the “right” one…

Then ask yourself this: “Am I a sub-set of this Reality?”

If your answer is a self-evident “of course,” then conclude that you too do not short-change, that you too are doing the best that you can, always have and always will, as long as you are alive.

As this applies to one's self-concept, this is like the Carl Rogers approach of unconditional positive self-regard. So as one tries to improve oneself and grow as a person, one is less likely to self-sabotage if one is unconditionally accepting of oneself throughout the process (rather than being overly self-critical during setbacks, etc).

So with plants, for example, one can see them as always "perfect," even when they have a lot of growing to do.

Another example is in Somov's book Present Perfect, where Somov mentions that perfectionists often are mindful of the present moment only long enough to judge it as not good enough.

When I read things like this I can't help but think of new age pandering.

I think "present perfect" is like the DBT concept of "radical acceptance," which means not fighting reality. And it may be that a term like "present perfect" may appeal to some perfectionists, more so than other mindfulness terms like "radical acceptance."

Joseph Campbell, in the Bill Moyers video interview series The Power of Myth, did a good job of explaining something similar -- that being life affirming doesn't mean embracing life just when things are going the way we think they should but being open to (or being accepting of) the whole experience -- the ups and downs:

CAMPBELL: Life is, in its very essence and character, a terrible mystery – this whole business of living by killing and eating. But it is a childish attitude to say no to life with all its pain, to say that this is something that should not have been.

MOYERS: Zorba says, “Trouble? Life is trouble.”

CAMPBELL: Only death is no trouble. People ask me, “Do you have optimism about the world?” And I say, “Yes, it’s great just the way it is. And you are not going to fix it up. Nobody has ever made it any better. It is never going to be any better. This is it, so take it or leave it. You are not going to correct or improve it.” ...James Joyce has a memorable line: “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” And the way to awake from it is not to be afraid, and to recognize that all of this, as it is, is a manifestation of the horrendous power that is all creation. The ends of things are always painful. But pain is part of there being a world at all.

MOYERS: But if you accepted that as an ultimate conclusion, you wouldn’t try to form any laws or fight any battles or –

CAMPBELL: I didn’t say that.

MOYERS: Isn’t that the logical conclusion to draw from accepting everything as it is?

CAMPBELL: That is not the necessary conclusion to draw. You could say, “I will participate in this life, I will join the army, I will go to war,” and so forth.

MOYERS: “I will do the best I can.”

CAMPBELL: “I will participate in the game. It is a wonderful, wonderful opera – except that it hurts.” Affirmation is difficult. We always affirm with conditions….But affirming the way it is – that’s the hard thing….

Amazon.com: The Power of Myth (9780385418867): Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers: Books

The Kennedy family, for example, seemed pretty life affirming considering their tragedies:

"We must give to life at least as much as we receive from it. Every moment one lives is different from the next. The good, the bad, the hardship. the joy, the tragedy, love and happiness are all interwoven into one single indescribable whole that is called life. You cannot separate the good from the bad. And, perhaps there is no need to do so either."

~ Jackie Kennedy

I think the more traditional Buddhist perspective is that we are all in nirvana now, and to be "enlightened" like the Buddha is to be fully mindful of that all the time. This is similar to Stoicism and Taoism where things can be "bad" or "good" in relative terms but nothing is ever truly intolerable if one's mind is fully in harmony with the flow of nature.

 

[Daniel E.]

Similarly:

"This is not some Pollyanna space of denial! People who are happy for no reason still experience times of being sad, of being angry, of being frustrated--but no matter what's going on, they carry with them an inner backdrop of peace and well-being throughout all the circumstances so they are more resilient."

~ Marci Shimoff

 

[Daniel E.]

from Why Living as a River Can Set us Free: An Interview with Bodhipaksa:

Our minds try to “fix” things and to see them as more permanent, static, and separate than they actually are. And one of the “things” that we treat in this way is ourselves.

 

[Daniel E.]

An exercise from the book Present Perfect:

Exercise: Humility Check

Whenever something goes "wrong" (meaning the way you supposed it would go), choose to shift from frustration to awe. Marvel at the bewildering, nuanced, multifaceted complexity of what is. Say to yourself, "Wow!" Instead of chastising yourself, allow that you made the best prediction you could about how reality would be, but you have obviously and understandably underestimated the mind-boggling complexity of it all. Perhaps you weren't aware of all the variables involved; maybe you didn't have enough computational sophistication to extrapolate the most likely trajectory of reality. How could have you known what you didn't know? If you had known what you didn't know, your predictions would have been different. It's time to factor in the new data, to update your assumptions, to revise your model, and to say "Wow!" (not "Damn!").

Present Perfect: A Mindfulness ... - Google Books

 

[Daniel E.]

New, Acceptance-Based Perfectionism
PsychCentral blog: 360 Degrees of Mindful Living
By Pavel G. Somov, Ph.D.

...As I see it, perfectionism is a crisis of misunderstanding of the concept of perfection. As a culture we believe that perfection is unattainable. If seen as such, the word “perfection” becomes a nonsense word, a word that refers to something imaginary and nothing real, nothing attainable. I posit just the opposite: the word “perfection” isn’t a nonsense word, it does refer to something real. Indeed, as I see it, the word “perfection” is synonymous with the word “reality.” As such, perfection is not only attainable, it is inevitable.

I realize you probably don’t have a clue of what I am talking about. I realize that the notion that perfection is inevitable sounds psychologically blasphemous and flies in the face of everything you’ve probably heard. I am well-aware of that and have felt the wind of this conceptual resistance with just about every perfectionist client I have worked with. I expect you to bristle at this notion. After all, you’ve been very well-programmed. So, I am not expecting you – unlike your unrealistic mentors and role models – to be ahead of yourself or to be any more willing to change your perspective than you are.

You are where you are. That’s enough for me. I sincerely accept your skepticism. In fact, I am counting on your skepticism. After all, skepticism is questioning and questioning is the beginning of rationality. So, allow me to preview my therapeutic thesis:

1. I posit that “everything, as (theoretically) imperfect as it may seem, is, in fact, as (practically) perfect as it can be at any given point in time;” this notion helps you begin to recognize the ordinary perfection of here-and-now life and to experience the very perfection that you have been craving; this shift in perspective is designed to help you become more accepting of the world at large and of yourself, without being any less ambitious or productive;

2. Contrary to the traditional cultural emphasis on “the perfection of achievement” I propose a shift to “the perfection of experience” which will, I predict, help you improve (rather than decrease) your productivity and creativity;

3. Furthermore, contrary to the all-too-familiar notion that “nobody is perfect,” I posit that “everybody is perfect or, which is the same, perfectly imperfect;” this is a shift in seeing oneself and others that will help you reduce your chronic self-loathing and help you co-exist with compassion.

4. Finally, I propose a shift from a paradigm of forgiveness in which we forgive others from a position of moral superiority to a more compassionate, less righteous, more humble paradigm of forgiveness in which we forgive because we identify with (relate to) the transgressor’s motivation and course of action, and we realize that the transgressor, too, has done his/her practical best (even if their best fails our personal and social expectations of what theoretically should be).

Worry not: this paradigm shift will not decay your morality, ambition, work ethic or productivity...