Thou shalt be fully engaged, enjoying what is before thee now, and learn to perceive the perfection beneath it and behind this seemingly imperfect world.
The challenge of Love requires that we not hold anything in reserve. We are commanded to be fully engaged with Life. When we experience fully our present moment, we fulfill the injunction to “Love God with all your heart and all your soul and all your might.”
I have been on various Buddhist-style retreats where I received instruction to pay attention to my breath. The instruction was helpful at the time. Later, I had the wonderful experience of hearing Thich Nat Han tach this same practice in a new way. In the most sensuous tone of voice he said, “Enjoy your breathing!” That changed the practice for me. In order to really “enjoy,” I also needed to pay attention, but it brought me a step further. I found I could open to the gift of each breath, and receive its bounty. The Song commands us to bask in the miracle of whatever we find before us:
Wherever we lie, our bed is green,
Our roofbeams are cedar, our rafters, fir. Song of Songs 1:16-17
When the lovers of the Song of Songs see each other as “perfect,” it may seem that they have been blinded by Love. On the contrary, their eyes have been opened to a deeper perfection previously obscured by the outer surface. Our whole world wears a mask of Tragedy. The perception of “everything that is wrong” is so compelling that it takes the most powerful force in the universe to pry that mask loose — even for a moment — so that we can receive the perfection that underlies all of Reality. We return from that experience of perfection with a challenge to expand our consciousness ever wider to embrace this paradox — to see the perfection that lies beneath the imperfection.
See also Shir HaShirim (Vayetze).