The Space Underneath Words
Words operate through exclusion. By labeling aspects of experience, words merge with the senses to carve objects from a background; a red apple or my self. This object-orientation amplified by language, supports the stories of a subject navigating the objective world. It makes me wonder, what if we never taught newborns to label things?
In A Beautiful Question, Frank Wilzcek winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics helps us relax the tendency to label as he reanimates the world:
“...It is beautiful to discover that there's another chapter to the story, where we discover deep unity beneath, and supporting, the diversity of appearance. All colors are one thing, seen in different states of motion. The time variation of light is too fast for our substance to follow. Its frequency is too high. And so, to make the best of a difficult situation, our sensory system processes the information and encodes a small part of it in perceived color. That code by the end of the day, bears little trace of its origin! When we perceive a color, we see a symbol of change, not anything that changes."
The significance of this observation eludes us. In everyday encounters with appearance, including the self, we assume a solid conclusion, not a symbol of change. A deeper look may present glimpses of a world not conceived fundamentally as solids occupying space, but conceived fundamentally on principle of motion. A dynamic world, an eternal animation, a wave function on which we wear a static veil.
A label can act as a dead-end. Because it was established a long time ago, a mountain is a mountain. Case closed. Other than our rigid expectation, very little understanding gets to emerge. Arbitrary labels, concepts, models, stories and identity accumulate into a program that limits the ways we can know and be. Everyday the program reactivates upon waking up with no conscious effort. For efficiency, we trade the natural dynamism with dullness.
Mountains fluidly shift
Everything is infused with rhythm
Not once are we born
Instant by instant, life flows through all
Language is recursive. Noticing very little of what is going on, the self separates from the unfolding experience to interpret. A chain reaction of thoughts, feelings and commentary loops back on itself endlessly, cutting us off from the immediacy of experience that gave rise to it. We spend vast stretches of time dwelling in the realm of secondhand reflections, where connection to the deeper currents of being is obscured. Bound by words, experience rebounds within the echo chamber of self-narration, sometimes for years. What remains bears little trace of its origin, only expired echoes, and a lingering unease.
Inherent to narration is taking a position outside. Inherent to taking a position is a rigid sense of separation. Not noticing the moment of separation from immediate perception, secondary echoes fabricate our realm.
The overriding character of language, though rarely examined, has profoundly limited our human experience and technologies. If language is our interface with the world, the little that passes through is reduced, static and distorted. We skim only a thin surface, while infinite dimensions of remarkable beauty unfold beneath. By probing the structure of language, rather than its content, the limiting edges reveal themselves. And with a more penetrating and encompassing understanding, those edges can dissolve into a boundless realm of fresh possibilities.
It is helpful to become aware of an open space just before the arising of thoughts. This is not an abstract space, it is simply the immediacy of lived experience. A direct experience of what is. Under-standing at this level, under the crust of concepts and objects, reveals vital qualities arising from the eternal animation of life. Just like newborns perceive the world and themselves—even as themselves—in qualitative ways, we first and foremost sense quality. Of sound that moves a certain way in a piano key and differently in the hum of silence. Of light that moves a certain way in green and differently in blue. Of water that moves a certain way in the mystery of morning fog and differently in shimmering ocean waves. Of art that moves us a certain way in Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and differently in Rodin’s Thinker. Moving a certain way transmits qualities. Motion is the medium. All forms are informing symbols of one constant: an ever-shifting, fantastical animation.
A vital space opens, radiant in the freshness of pure perception.
Free from the myopic lens of language and identity, our world reanimates, experience comes alive, and our resources expand without end. Inner and outer, head and heart, journey and destination, dissolve into one seamless realm, deeper and broader than any word. The present moment, its portal. A threshold to a new way of being.
At ease, spacious and in the flow
With life’s shining rhythm.