Waxing metaphysical

A few weeks ago I had a eureka moment as I came to the realization that we are not just made of cells, but that our cells are made of atoms, and that each of those atoms is perfect -- every last one of them.

I shared this realization with my (Buddhist) meditation teacher, who then added that every atom is not only perfect, but also conscious, and possessing what she called "Buddha nature," which one might rephrase in non-Buddhist terms as "partaking of the divine perfection of the whole".

So if our atoms are perfect, where does our sickness come from? It seems that imperfection creeps in through less-than-perfect interaction between all these perfect parts. But where does the imperfection of the interactions come from? I thought my teacher might say "karma," but instead she said "conditioned beliefs." "Karma" in this context does not have punitive connotations, but simply means "cause and effect," as in "if you smoke cigarettes, you might get lung cancer." "Conditioned beliefs" in turn are the parameters of your life, the rules you absorbed, beginning the day you were born from the society you were born into, creating the self-chosen prison you live in beyond whose bars you cannot see.

A number of years ago I learned a healing system called "Russian Organ Regeneration," which held that sickness was a deviation from your perfect divine blueprint, and that healing was nothing more than a return to that original blueprint. The divinity that created the blueprint was not only outside you, but also inside you; you were the co-creator of your own blueprint. Your return to health returned a small piece of divine creation to its original perfection, and the task was to return as much of the whole to its original perfection as possible.

But if perfection already underlies the whole, then the task becomes to bring perfection to the relationship of the parts within the whole. Energy healers talk of "harmonizing," Buddhists of "removing obscurations." Dr. Bengston suggests that energy healers provide not energy but information, which teaches the body the interactions it needs to return to healthy functioning. The "Russian Organ Regeneration" folks go back to the time before the initial deviation and from there follow the path of divine perfection, the unfolding of the blueprint as you and God originally intended.

Whatever the case may be, it cannot hurt to embrace the timeless perfection that lives at the core of you. Every one of your atoms is functioning as it should. Every one of them has been around for billions of years. Every one of them is immortal. And beyond that is the something that animates them all, that gives life to their dance, that existed before you were born and will continue to exist after you die, and for the time being, however long that may be, makes you you.

That's worth meditating on.