The Perfect Life

Have you ever randomly picked up a shell as you are strolling along the beach and marveled at how beautiful and perfect it is? And then picked up a similar shell a few moments later, with similar dimensions but completely different patterns, and marveled at how it, too, is beautiful and perfect? What, then, is 'perfect', and how could two similar shells with completely different patterns appear be so? Perhaps it is because their perfection is not in reference to some comparative pattern, but, rather, self-contained. What, then, is a perfect life? I would venture a guess that, for most of us, a perfect life is in reference to some predetermined notion of a perfect life, and, further, that, for some of us, especially those who have not graduated to acceptance, the difference between our actual lives and our ideal lives is a source of frustration, sadness and despair. Imagine searching for the perfect shell, according to a mental image of same, and continually being disappointed by the search. We might lose touch with the experience of strolling along the beach, in the sun, with the sound of rolling waves, and the feel of warm sand. We might, instead, be so singularly focused on sifting through shells, partitioning the ones that have been examined from the ones that have not, in search of a pattern that matches the image in our minds, without fully grasping why we have the image in our minds to begin with. Without going through the trouble of trying to understand the root cause behind our idea of the ideal life, what if we were to simply eliminate it, and commit to seeing the life we have at this very moment to be perfectly perfect? When a pupil approaches the Zen master and asks how to attain enlightenment, the prototypical response from the master is "you already have, but you simply have not yet realized it". It may be our realization of who we already are and the life that we are already living that can be the source of true happiness, not the attainment of a new self or a new life. If our souls are as timeless as we hope they are, then perhaps we should assume that our lives are a manifestation of this timelessness.