Member-only story
The Power of an Imperfect Prayer
You don’t have to be perfect to make the world a better place.
Anam Thubten Rinpoche taught me to end all my meditations with these words: “By this merit, may all attain perfect awakening, rising above all forces of negativity, going beyond the ocean of samsara.” It goes on from there, but it’s those first three words that gets me every time: “By this merit.”
My heart always sinks. By this merit? Really? What merit? I just sat here for five minutes and thought about what I wish I’d said the other day when that thing happened that upset me. Or, I kept realizing that I was frustrated about something that will never change. Or I got bored and made up trauma dramas to keep me entertained. That’s not merit. No one’s attaining “perfect awakening” because I sat there with those thoughts. How can my poor excuse for a meditation session help anyone “rise above all forces of negativity?”
Then I saw where my thinking was mistaken. Does only perfect awakening inspire perfect awakening? As in, I gotta be perfect before I inspire anyone else to perfection? Actually, it’s more often imperfection that points the way to where we’re heading.
Look at Leymah Gbowee. In 2011, she won the Nobel Peace Prize for leading a women’s nonviolent peace movement that helped end the Second Liberian…
