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There is nothing more perfect than the Tao,
yet it doesn’t seek perfection.
When you understand perfection,
you realize that there is nothing to seek,
nothing to gain or lose,
nothing to defend or reject.
You return to yourself
and find what is inexhaustible.

For most of us, perfection is an idea of what should be. Comparing what is to our idea of what should be, we judge what is as deficient. But once we get a little sanity going and can tell the difference between reality and our thoughts about it, the habit of comparison subsides, and perfection becomes not abstract but lived. In the first flush of understanding, we may feel drunk with the good news, we may have to pinch ourselves, we may start babbling the obvious, in the words of the ancient poet: “This is perfect. That is perfect. Perfect comes from perfect. Take perfect from perfect, the remainder is perfect.”

The unattainable—how close it is! No need to understand it or accept it, no need to look anywhere else, or to look for it at all. How can it be lost if it was ours from the very beginning? How can it be found if it was never lost?