Loving the Incomplete

I wonder: what would life be like if the thought that is arising is already the perfect thought, and I just trust that this is the perfect thought?

Most of my life seems to be just about trying to perfect the thought that is already passed. Today, I reflected on something that a close friend had told me a few years ago. She was talking about how, whenever she took tests at school, she would get stuck on a certain question and her hand would freeze up on that question. Her teacher had to guide her hand to the next question. Later, I think the teacher had helped her to realize that she didn’t need to keep going on a question on which she was getting stuck. Perhaps, I wonder whether this is because she was holding onto what she thought was supposed to be there. I can think of many examples in my life where my thinking somehow freezes or gets stuck in some idea or attitude and lingers there.

It is not to say that I cannot dedicate myself to something. But it is to know that the something I dedicate to is always changing. What I think now is not the same as what I just thought, even though it might seem to be the same object. The two thoughts don’t connect. So, in a sense, there is nothing to correct about that thought. This is just engaging the new thought without trying to make the old one better. But in the case of the exam, there is something that the mind does to feel stuck or suffering. I don’t quite know how to describe it, but it is a quality of lingering. It reminds me of this novel I read many years ago by Virginia Woolf, where there is this artist who can’t seem to finish the painting she has started. It is only toward the end of the book that she starts to find that stroke that will finish it for her. I can understand that sort of agony and joy she feels.

 I fixate on the idea of loving the incomplete. To be honest, I am not there yet, at all. It is just the question of how to love the incomplete that is a kind of obsession. In a way, it replicates my friend’s fixation on trying to find the answer in the test. In real life situations, there is never time to answer anything fully. I use expedient means (memory, quick hands, luck, the stray thoughts) to put something together that might satisfy the customer, the teacher, the boss or the relative. Then, if I stumble on the test, I try to find ways to compensate for that failed test. But even that is still trying to complete the past. So what would loving the incomplete mean? The question has no answer. It is about being true to the nature of thought. Not trying to create stories out of finished thoughts. Once the thief has left the room, there is no need to create an alibi. But still, I do anyway. Stories are often ways of justifying disjointed thoughts, bringing them to a satisfying conclusion.