The Misguided Quest for Perfection

The idealism that leads to a desire for, or addiction to perfection on the spiritual path can be, psychologically, very damaging. The Buddhist path recognizes that it is folly to search for perfection in life. All this searching does is lead to endless suffering and dissatisfaction. As Chogyam Trungpa pointed out, we go around and around, trying to improve ourselves through struggle, until we realize that the ambition to improve ourselves is itself the problem. The only road to perfection is for the ego [a.k.a., sense of self] to finally give up this search and allow what is, recognizing that our innate Buddha nature is beyond the relative qualities of good and bad. To become enlightened is not about perfecting our relative state of being, but is about recognizing our true nature.

Rob Preece
from The Wisdom of Imperfection; the Challenge of Individuation in Buddhist Life