Oneness

Oneness
image life itself? Are the words that describe a maple tree
anything close to an actual maple tree?
What about the words themselves: “maple tree?” Clearly
this is a label for something, something we have all agreed
to call by the name “maple tree,” but is there such a thing?
Looking at what we call a “maple tree,” we see that it is
made up of many other things that we have labels for—
”leaves,” “branches,” “roots,” “soil,” etc. Are these each
their own individual objects, or are they all a part of the
same thing, being divided only by our mind-made labels?
If we label something as a “tree,” does that mean that
everything else is not a tree? Does that mean the tree has
an existence of its own? To us it may seem that way, but is
this the truth? A tree is not separate from the Earth of
which it grows, nor is the Earth separate from the sky or
the Universe in which it exists. The entire cosmos is
connected to this thing we have labeled a “tree,” showing
that there really is no such thing as a “tree” in the sense
that it is an object with an existence of its own. In reality,
the tree is just as much a part of anything we think not to
be a tree, including your own body.
The only reason we feel that a tree, a rock, a body, or
anything for that matter, has an existence of its own, is
because we have associated these things with our mental
labels and images of them, rather than as they really are.
From the moment of birth, we have been conditioned
to label objects, “table,” “couch,” “chair,” “tree,” “bird,”
“mom,” “dad,” etc.—but the labels do not explain the
totality of the objects themselves. Failing to realize this, we
go through life labeling our experiences, trying to
categorize them with our minds, unaware that our attempt
to label an experience is ultimately useless, as no label is
ever capable of describing that which it attempts to define.
We do this so often, that instead of just experiencing
life, we separate ourselves from life with our thoughts, and
instead experience our own mental images of life, rather
than life itself. Nothing in nature is separate; all things exist
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