The One Revealed II

Scott Bradley

Each thing reveals the One, / the One manifests as all things. / To live in this Realization / is not to worry about perfection or non-perfection. / To put your trust in the Heart-Mind / is to live without separation, / and in this non-duality you are one with your Life-Source.
— Xin-Xin Ming (Seng-Ts'an?; Richard B. Clarke, translator)

To realize oneness is to transcend concerns about perfection and non-perfection; why does Seng-Ts'an tell us this? Might it not be because it is precisely this distinction that drives a wedge through the heart of reality as we experience it? For the most part we are able to affirm the non-human world even in its apparent non-perfection. Earth wobbles and fails of perfect symmetry. The pockmarked planets revolve elliptically. Stars die. The ever-accelerating Universe ever-expands into nothingness. Outside my window I see pine, fir and cedar, all bearing the scars of life, yet each one still somehow perfect.

It is upon the human world that we stumble. What a mess! Whether taken as a whole or individually, non-perfection is the rule. We need to improve. We need to become better. Unlike the trees, we can improve. Like the trees, we need not improve to be perfect. This is that inherent perfection that obtains because we are, a perfection that has nothing to do with perfection and non-perfection.

It is said that all conflict and violence arise from unmet needs. Things are not as they should be; we need to fix them. But what if we realized our perfection in our imperfections; might not our fixing be a non-fixing? Might not we and the world improve without conflict?

Needless to say, I speak theoretically. And I speak of a 'cure' because I understand I have the disease. And though that understanding may be more painful than a lack thereof, still it seems likely that only those who know they are sick seek a cure.

To realize perfection in oneself is not possible except in that one also realizes it in all others. If it is difficult to realize it in oneself, how much more so in others? Yet the proof of the former lies in the latter.

Our perfection is the perfection of the One, which we are; how could it be otherwise?

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.