Label Makers

22

Label Makers

Life is like heady wine.

Everyone reads the label on the bottle.

Hardly anyone tastes the wine.

Buddha once pointed to a flower and asked each of his disciples to say something about it.

One pronounced a lecture.

Another a poem.

Yet another a parable.

Each outdid the other in depth and erudition.

Label-makers!


Mahakashyap smiled and held his tongue.

Only he had seen the flower.


If I could only taste a bird,

a flower,

a tree,

a human face!

But, alas, I have no time.

My energy is spent deciphering the label.

The Song of the Bird

Anthony de Mello