A. Everything is perfect by itself unless you make it imperfect with your imaginary standard. Imperfection comes into being when you see things with an imaginary standard created by your greed, or desire. The imaginary standard cannot help but be imperfect since it varies depending on the perspectives of beholders.
A tree in the mountain, for example, is perfect as a tree. However, when you look for a tree for landscaping your new house, it can be problematic. It is not easy to find a perfect tree for your garden in terms of its shape, size, the type of tree, the cost for transporting it to your house, etcetera because you have your own imaginary standard of a perfect tree.
To conclude, we make imperfection out of perfection through our discrimination. Dissatisfied with the imperfection, we struggle to turn it into imaginary new perfection, which is compared to trying to grasp one’s shadow. The frustrated emotions we feel when we fail to grasp the shadows are referred to as suffering in Buddhism.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
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