Drop the Label
Hey there. Taking a few seconds to pause right now, how would you describe your present experience or feeling in one or two words?
Does that description have a tone of evaluation? Something that is “good” or “bad” or that you want more of or less of?
This morning, when I sat down to meditate, I noticed that my felt experience could be described as a bit of a headache. But “headache” is a word, it is a symbolic label used to represent the sensory experience that I was presently feeling.
And the label “headache” can very easily fall into the evaluative bucket of “bad” and “I want less of this.” Once it has entered this evaluative realm, the whole of me becomes a state of lack, a friction against my current existence, and I become no longer truly open to Now, because there is a part of Now that I don’t accept as it is.
I then had a few options: feel annoyed that my meditation was being interrupted by physical discomfort, decide to forego the meditation and find some ibuprofen, or utilize the sensation as an object of curiosity. I chose the latter (not to say any of these options are better or worse per se). I dropped the label “headache” and internally went directly into the present sensation with openness and interest, a lighthearted stance of “Oh hello, what are you up to?” I’m reminded of what Jon Kabat-Zinn has said about putting out the welcome mat to anything and everything that simply is here Now.
What then happened was the sensation turned into many sensations, or rather I became aware of how the singular “headache” was actually made up of an indeterminate constellation of buzzing and movement, shifting in its center across the top of my head from somewhere near the middle, toward the back, then even somehow down into and through the throat, and the rest of the body. And via this internal curiosity, this lack of resistance, the whole thing had completely transformed from the initial automatic label of “headache.” It was no longer a headache, it was just This, and I noticed the discomfort had actually vanished (or maybe it was just my resistance that vanished?).
Our ongoing momentary experience is inevitably so deeply mediated by symbolic language and evaluation. And this is a superpower that allows us to communicate and predict future events. But in any moment, there lies the opportunity to COMPLETELY drop the label, and simply feel what This is, as it is, brand new, Now. Inevitably, the word used to describe This will become utterly ineffectual in its accuracy, and the True description will morph into an ineffable swirling of energy that is constantly different and cannot ever be pinned down as “this” or “that.”
There’s a line that goes “zen is what lies beyond ideas of good and bad,” and I believe you could replace “zen” simply with “This.” This is what lies beyond ideas of good and bad.
At any moment,
experiment with
dropping the label,
completely,
for This.
…
See This,
feel This,
for what It truly is,
no words needed.
…
And then, somehow,
It
changes.
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