The Label Hides the Miracle
On one level, labels can be extremely helpful to us. We read the labels on packaged food to learn about the ingredients, the number of calories and other nutritional information. We examine the labels on clothing items to know what the garment is made of, and how to wash it properly.
We could come up with endless examples of how labels provide helpful information in many contexts.
However, not all labels provide helpful information. In fact, some labels actually “mask” or cover reality, and can lead us away from the truth. Let me illustrate this point by sharing a story I heard recently. A spiritual teacher in India was being interviewed. I don’t recall the teacher’s name right now.
During the interview, the spiritual teacher held a flower in his hand and he asked the interviewer, “What is this?”
The interviewer naturally replied, “It’s a flower.”
The teacher said, “No, flower is a name or label we have given it, but the word “flower” doesn’t explain what it is.”
The teacher again held up the flower and said, “What is this”?
The interviewer remained silent for a while and then admitted that the item the teacher was holding could not really be described.
The teacher had made his point. The essence of what we call a flower is nothing we could describe. It is a miracle of unknown origin. Even if you say that God created the flower, you still don’t know what the essence of the flower is.
Anything you would use to describe it is just another label – and the label is not the item itself.
The word “table” is not a table. You can’t sit on the word “table.” You can’t drink the word “water.” Each of these things is something other than its label.
The same is true for each of us. A person might say, “I am John” or “I am Mary” – yet these are names – and not the essence of the person. If John changes his name to Bill, the name has changed, but the essence of the person is the same.
You are not your name, just as the flower is not the WORD flower.
Science won’t be of much help to you here, either. Science has shown us that ALL matter, including you and the flower, are some type of energy waves vibrating in empty space. Now, does that clarify what you and the flower really are?
Hardly.
While you might see this initially as a silly word game, I invite you to look a little more closely. I invite you to see the miracle inherent in EVERY object, thought, sensation and feeling that arises in this world.
Of course, we have to use names or labels such as words to describe phenomena in this world. It is the only way we could communicate with each other.
Yet we can still recognize the limitations of these names and labels. We can recognize that each item in this world, whether it be a “tangible” object (such as an animal or table) – or an intangible (such as thought or feeling) – is comprised of some spiritual essence we can’t possibly comprehend, and which no label can capture.
Everything you see is this miraculous spiritual essence. Everything you feel is this miraculous spiritual essence. And the dog poop on the street is no less a miracle than the Grand Canyon.
When you accept the labels without looking beyond them, you become trapped in a world of comparisons and judgments — and you don’t see the miracle.
When you are concentrating on the label or name, your perspective is limited. There is a table in front of you and instead of wondering what this thing is, or where it comes from (and I don’t mean its nation or city of origin), you see a scratch you don’t like in the table. Or you like the color and texture of the table, compared to others you have seen.
We focus on a label like someone’s nationality. This person is Chinese. That person is Canadian. We then get bogged down in comparisons of which nationality we are, which we like better, etc.
In the examples I described above, the mind becomes active and the miracle is hidden.
We are merely playing with labels at a very superficial level.
What, in essence, is the Chinese person or the Canadian person? Each is a miracle, some spiritual essence beyond the capacity for any human to explain.
Whenever you don’t need to communicate something to someone else, relax the names and labels. You don’t need them to experience the world around you. Just take it all in. Give the thinking mind a vacation.
Go beyond the name. When you look at the tree, ask yourself, “what is it”? When you see your child, ask yourself “what is this”? As you eat an apple, ask yourself, “what is this”?
In so doing, you will see the limitations of labels, and you’ll begin to see the miracles everywhere.
– Jeff Keller
© 2009