Remove the Labels

It is time to remove all kinds of labels and celebrate the uniqueness and gifts in each of us

All Labels Are Useless

As people, we need to categorise and label the things, people and the environment around us.

Doing so helps our brain to wrap around various concepts that we encounter and the things that we see in our daily lives.

However, all labels are actually useless.

Why? Because everything that you see, hear, feel or experience and give a name or label is based on your sense perceptions.

Someone may say that this space is small. Another may say that it is really huge.

Why is there the difference when they are both referring to the same space?

It is because each of them perceived the space with different sense perceptions, different values and different context.

A person used to living in an environment of huge, open space would find a house small. Yet, a poor person who lived in a small space and shared it with 10 people would find the same house to be huge.

So, who is right?

Neither one is right. The space exists just as it is. Big or small is meaningless to the space.

It is because human kind has such different perceptions that a lot of disagreements and arguments arise because each person defends his labelling and his perception to be absolutely correct.

This is the danger of labelling and naming things. It restricts our view and perception of its true nature.

We go running around, chasing our feelings and having opinions of everything and yet we fail to see the truth that lies within each of us.

Letting Go To Be Awaken

"I am an Investment Banker working in a prestigeous Wall Streets firm."

"She is a high-power Lawyer."

"My father is a Millionaire and owns lots of properties."

"Catherine is a stay-at-home Mom with 2 children."

"He is a senator."

"I am a Professor with a PhD in Literature."


All of us are defined by labels that we either placed on ourselves or by others.

That is how an ego works - the "I" needs to clearly identify itself so that it can fit into society's definitions of how you should behave, live or work. Everything is defined by the expectations accorded by the label. You should clearly stay in the boundaries set up by your ego and its labels. Anytime you do not do that, you will be called "Crazy", "Acting Strange", "Not her usual self."

All these are labels, whose primary aim is to fit you into a context defined by the material world, the ego-filled world where every body has their expected place in the world.

Therefore, we are burdened by views and ideas about things, about ourselves, about the world surrounding us. Our minds are filled with opinions about things and some times, delusions of our wisdom. We end up being too clever to listen to others, to be open to new ideas and be receptive of other people's opinions.

In doing that, we find ourselves shut out from the Universe. Being too clever and ego-centric, we never learn. We cannot be open to new experiences and ideas.

Therefore, to be Awaken, you need to get rid of this cleverness. A cup filled to the rim with stale, dirty water will not have room for anything else. Therefore, it is essential that you empty the cup, throw out the dirty water and start with a clean cup. Only when the mind is empty and pristine can you recognize the truth about the "Non-I", the "Being" that exists in all of us, our Buddha-nature.


Being Awaken is letting go of self and the ego. And accept the emptiness, the voidness, the Present...