Perfection Without Perfectionism

Close your eyes. Make up your mind you’re going to stay with the breath—all the way in, all the way out—each breath as it comes in, each breath as it goes out. If you find yourself slipping off, come right back. Slip off again, come right back again. Don’t follow the mind where it’s wandering. You stay right here. Its thoughts may wander away, but you don’t have to pay them any mind. Pay attention to the breath and your mind—your ability to keep your awareness with the breath. Try to do this as well as you can.

After all, we are working on our perfections. Psychologists have noticed there’s an outbreak of perfectionism, especially among younger people. That doesn’t mean the world is getting more perfect. It just means that they’re beating themselves up over not being able to be perfect in things outside, things that other people can see.

The Buddha himself said that it’s important to try to be as good as you can in what you’re doing. But at the same time, you should take pleasure in the fact that you can do things well. Whatever good things you’ve done, he says, be happy about them. Take joy in them. But then don’t rest content.

This is the difference between perfectionism and the Buddha’s pursuit of perfection. You might say it’s the pursuit of excellence. In perfectionism, nothing is ever good enough. You’re never good enough, and that just wears you out. With the pursuit of excellence, you realize you’ve got a good goal.

We’re not here to look perfect in other people’s eyes. We’re here to figure out why we’re causing ourselves suffering—what we can do to put a stop to that. The more you can do that, the better you can do that, then the happier you’ll be. In other words, you set a goal that will make you happy and then you learn how to approach it—giving yourself energy through taking joy in what you have been able to do, but not resting content, realizing there’s always more to be done, until the mind no longer has any causes for suffering at all.

That’s the difference between perfectionism and the pursuit of excellence. In perfectionism, nothing is ever good enough. You never attain your goal. And even if you attain a goal, it’s not really satisfying.

Whereas in the Buddha’s pursuit of excellence, the goal is good. And when you get there, you don’t need to have any more goals. You can take on other goals as you like, but there’s nothing you have to do from that point on, because you’ve found the ultimate happiness.

So as you’re working on this, try to do as good a job as you can with staying with the breath. Keep watch over the mind. As soon as it shows any inclination to move someplace else, bring it back to the breath. You’ll find that its inclinations exist on many layers. You get the obvious layers, and then you find, oh, there are subtle layers behind that—and then even subtler ones behind that. But the quest does have an end. It does reach a goal.

So learn how to give yourself energy as you pursue the goal but keep yourself on course. Don’t rest content with half measures.

It’s like you’re going to the Grand Canyon. You’ve heard that it’s a big ditch. And alongside the road to the Grand Canyon, you see there’s a big ditch on the side of the road. Don’t content yourself with the ditches on the side of the road. You’re going to find something that’s much better when you get to the end of the road.

So keep on taking joy in what you’re doing. And then take joy in trying to do it better.