Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life. Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye.

Perfection. Is it a gift, a curse, or a little bit of both? I used to think that striving to be a perfectionist was a positive

personality trait because it meant paying great attention to detail, working hard and diligently

aiming for what is best without settling for less.

But what is perfection and according to whom?

The entire concept implies a hierarchy and a constant judgment of better and worse, comparing everything to some

ideal or standard to which we are all subjected since birth.

Our obsession with perfection starts with getting perfect grades or having the perfect body,

perfectly round or sharp corners, perfect teeth architecture, a perfect score, perfect pitch or tone, and terms like proper and inappropriate.

We tend to be drawn to symmetry and balance,

and I didn't even realize I was judging the world this way until I heard the Japanese term

Wabi Sabi, which actually celebrates asymmetry, rough edges, the incomplete, the simple, and the natural integrity and impermanence of everything and everyone.

Something isn't deemed beautiful because it's perfect or everlasting.

Its beauty is embedded in its very transients.

After years of trying to measure up to one idea of perfection, Wabi-Sabi is a refreshing practice

that embraces what is slightly marred, scarred, aged, nature made, and jagged.

I'm not just talking about aesthetics either.

The more I think about my old definition of perfection, the more I realize how I've been measuring everything and

every one against impossible standards. And I know what you're thinking, don't we need some standards

and to set the bar somewhere? Well, Wabi doesn't lower the standard or does away with it.

It changes it.

For me, the shift was from looking at something

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