What do we mean when we use the word ‘wholeness’? Maybe there’s a sense of being complete, that everything is going well all of the time and we can live in an unconcerned way. Life, and our experience of it, is perfect: no problems, no worries, everything coming to us in ways that are expected and without much trouble.
As much as we may prefer otherwise, this is not the case, and in fact has never been so. Anyone who is talking about perfection is selling something, and before we start thinking about wholeness we have to discard the idea that it’s going to be something that’s continuously pleasing and accommodating to our preferences. Our basic situation is that life just isn’t that way: it’s often unexpected, complex, and difficult.
Does this mean that life is bad? I don’t think so. Just because something is challenging or complicated doesn’t inherently mean it’s a burden: but that’s how we often relate to life. In a world in which many of us can strive to be comfortable before anything else, we struggle with anything that runs counter to that experience of comfort. When you’re trying to be comfortable all of the time, things get inconvenient quickly. People, circumstances, patterns of thought and emotion, basically anything that doesn’t conform to our desire for comfort, become very unpleasant. A life spent trying to avoid or remove the uncomfortable is only going to escalate that irritation, and that’s precisely why complexity and uncertainty feel burdensome. The effort involved in trying to escape those natural qualities of life increases the weight we’ve already placed on ourselves, whether we’re aware of it or not.
So, we have to get rid of the sense that wholeness is a kind of perfect world that’s going to please us all of the time. We also need to allow life to be the complicated, unpredictable thing that it is. If we can accept that, we can start to get curious about a different kind of path through and with our life.
Wholeness is not a destination, it is a life-affirming journey that will continue to show us important things about ourselves and our world. It asks us to be an active participant in our life as it is, to accept our experience of it as an unfolding process that can always teach us something of value. Rather than trying to bracket things into preferences and perfect moments, it throws the doors wide open and engages everything with interest and openness.
I enjoy the quote above because it addresses these dynamics quite well: what we believe to be an obstacle is in fact the path itself. Li hints at the importance of curiosity: life is the way, and so whatever is in front of us is worth paying attention to. We have to work with what we have, whether those circumstances are preferable or not. Waiting for a perfect moment or the most ideal conditions is going to miss the boat.
This is hardly an easy thing to do. Even at a basic glance, we can see how often we try to direct and create those ideal situations. In order to experience happiness or fulfillment, we have a long list of terms and conditions. From small things like morning routines to big events like job promotions, life has to unfold in a very linear, predictable kind of format in order for it to “work”. And if it doesn’t? Calamity. Failure. We reject our experience, and maybe even ourselves too. We feel cheated, distressed, as if something is fundamentally wrong with the world because things didn’t pan out as expected.
There’s a lot of aggression involved in trying to force life to be a certain way. It’s in our consciousness of achievement, of success, of acquiring more money, comfort, attraction, you name it. As someone with a high-achievement personality, I see this in myself: I know very well the rush of feeling like I’ve accomplished something, that I’ve fulfilled an aspect of my life in a way that feels complete.
But that isn’t wholeness, that’s just an idea. In that personal narrative, I’m just living out a story I’ve told myself. Am I actually happy? At times, no, or at least not in the way I expect I will be. That moment of satisfaction is all too brief, and how I’ve treated myself in process tends to be unkind. At my worst, I’ve worked myself to sickness, to a lack of sleep and food, abandoning basic needs in pursuit of making life happen according to how I want it to go. It’s a self-manipulation that I, and we, need to categorically reject.
I’m not saying that having goals or ambition in life is a bad thing, but we should be critical of the aggression that (particularly American) culture implies as necessary for fulfillment. It’s exhausting to live in constant competition, to feel that we need to constantly improve, to treat others as either obstacles or instruments for our personal gain. It makes life a constant struggle that, in the end, we will never satisfy.
Wholeness lacks aggression, manipulation, deception, and the need to compete and dominate. It doesn’t mean that we’re not doing things that are important or meaningful to us: but it’s a different quality of activity altogether. How we do things is dramatically different. We participate in life from the basis that, fundamentally, we are worthy to be alive as we are. Life is precious and worth investigating, even if it gets difficult and complicated. Effort is a process of interest and unfolding curiosity, rather than forcing something to happen. Experience has inherent value, whether it challenges us or not.
Just like a raft, life is an imperfect structure. This doesn’t mean that it can’t get us anywhere. And, also like a raft, we need all of it in order to proceed.
Wholeness is ultimately about discovering and living out who we are in the fullest sense: like a seed, full of its own inherent potential, meeting its conditions for growth. And let’s be clear: growth is not the same thing as improvement! It’s a natural process that does not assume that our starting point is a bad place to be. Starting where we are is exactly the right location: and if wholeness is a journey, then there’s no anxiety about getting somewhere different.
Real flourishing in life has nothing to do with controlling circumstances, resisting what challenges us, or getting what we want all of the time. Instead, being whole understands that imperfection, despite its difficulty, is the ground of all learning. If we were perfect, life would be boring and there would be nothing to do or discover. In fact, life’s imperfection is precisely what we need: in order to explore, to become, to enjoy the wonders of being alive. It’s a perspective that allows us to develop a deep appreciation for what makes life worth living.
We don’t need to be perfect or comfortable to discover a love and care for life. These are found amidst the difficulty and beauty of things. What we need is curiosity and courage: to open, to look, to embrace. We have to trust that whatever arises in our life is an opportunity for greater connection, openness, and wakefulness in our experience. Even though it’s hard to be uncomfortable, to face what frightens or challenges us, what we find is ultimately more of ourselves. Beyond aggression and a desire to control is an unconditional way of life: a path much more powerful than the sum of our fears.
