My One Weakness ...

Dorcas, the lovely Post Mistress in Candleford would smile disarmingly when caught out in some footling flaw and proclaim it, "My one weakness!" The joke we share is, of course that the weaknesses were legion, as they always are. 

My 'one weakness' of choice today is my vanity. There! I have named it, laughed at it, and am just going to let it go ... 

Being vain takes up a lot of time and energy. Mirror-gazing, anxiety about looks/age/weight/intelligence, to say nothing of the constant temptation ro compare myself to others and to find myself decidedly second-rate.  It's all nonsense of course. So my practise today is to laugh at myself, or at least give a little inward chuckle, every time I catch myself  out in a wonton act of vanity.

This particular train of thought is brought to you by the Dharma Seed App. I have just listened to an insightful talk on 'Joy' which had nothing to say about vanity, but did teach me this:

Enlightenment is not to find perfection, but to discover OKness. Actually the Zen Master's words were, "To be enlightened is to embrace everything." The guy who quoted him made the OKness comment. 

An end then to hierarchical religion, whereby you climb higher and higher through ever rarified levels of perfection. Here are widening circles of love and acceptance, until, eventually you embrace the universe quite content to see the OK as good enough and perfection is for the vain.