Being Human
Living a Life of Practice
A life of practice is "not perfection but wholeness"
I have always loved that Jung said that the goal of humanity was “not perfection, but wholeness”. I have found myself, too often on the path of meditation (as in life), hoping to avoid pain and struggle by becoming ‘perfect’. Or my idea of perfect, which leaves me once again on the shaky ground of concepts. No-one will ever agree on what so-called ‘perfection’ is (note our inability to agree on ‘perfect stuff’ like ‘god’ or ‘goodness’ )... But each of us can be - perhaps can only be - the particular human life that we are.
My own wish is to fully inhabit this life, as something that is constantly expressing within the silent, unconditioned field of awareness. Here is me in the stillness of a mind at rest and here is me with a mind full of judgement. Here is me in the silence of morning and here is me crashed out with reality TV. Here is watching the herons on the river and here is my love of dancing and whisky and crisps.
Meditation expresses a way of ‘just being’. Can I carry this ‘beingness’ into being human?
Am I able to embrace my messy, complicated wholeness as the sky embraces weather?
Can I be as alive and authentic as life itself?
"it seems to me that at this moment in time, the world doesn't need more "saints", she needs more real human beings, she needs the authentic you"
Brother Phap Hai, Plum Village