The Second Book of the Tao

Nothing is more perfect than the Dao—yet it does not seek perfection.
When you understand perfection, you find there is nothing to look for.
Nothing to gain or lose, nothing to defend or reject.
You return to yourself and discover what is inexhaustible.

For most of us, perfection is an idea of what it should be. By comparing what is with our idea of what it should be, we judge what is as defective. But once we gain a little common sense and can distinguish reality from our thoughts about it, the habit of comparing disappears, and perfection becomes not abstract, but something lived.
How close the unattainable is! You don’t need to understand it, accept it, seek it anywhere else, or even look for it at all. How could it be lost, if it has been ours from the very beginning? How could it be found, if it was never lost?