Label Maker

Life is like heady wine Everyone reads the label on the bottle. Hardly anyone tastes the wine.

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

One pronounced a lecture. Another a poem. Yet another a parable. Each trying to outdo the other in depth and erudition.

Label makers!

Mahakashyap smiled and said nothing. 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 by Anthony de Mello)