Dearest Friends,

It was delightful to be in your gracious company yet again today!

In today’s session, we explored the last of the “filters” that shape our perceptions of reality, which is the filter of language. Like I shared in my brief reflections, using language is one of the most fundamental ways that we apply filters to reality. The labels that we apply to different phenomena can make a profound difference in how we experience them. For example, read the following pairs of labels and just notice how they generate very different experiences of similar or identical realities:

• victim versus survivor;
• instruction versus invitation;
• criticism versus feedback;
• failure versus lesson;
• setback versus opportunity; and
• obligation versus commitment.

When we begin to notice—through heightened awareness—just how powerful our words are in shaping our experience, we can begin to become more mindful of the words that we use (whether it’s words that we direct towards ourselves or to others). Over time, this becomes another expression of wise speech—one that honors how our words construct the very worlds in which we live. The filters our words create can make all the difference in whether we induce more suffering—or foster greater happiness, freedom and well-being.

Finally, it can be beneficial at times to let go of our labels altogether and to return to the ineffable richness of reality as it is.  As the Austro-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said: “”Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”

SUGGESTED PRACTICE:

Sit quietly and attend to your breath with your gaze lowered or your eyes closed. After a few minutes, direct your attention to sounds and label the sounds that you hear. After a few minutes, drop the labeling and attend to sounds as mere vibration, noticing their pitch, volume, texture, etc. Before ending the practice, hold both experiences in spacious awareness and notice what difference it made to drop labels and to rest in direct perception.

REFLECTION PROMPTS:

1. What was it like to engage in the aforementioned meditation?
2. What shifted in your experience when you stopped labeling sounds and simply received them on the level of bare attention?
3. If you found doing this beneficial, how can you remember to do it more in daily life?