Tao Te Ching 1

The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.
The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin of all particular things.
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At the moment of birth each of us is given a name. As soon as we become aware of that name we begin to believe that we’re different than others. Naming and labeling divide one from another; they separate people and things; they make each person and thing particular, which is to say peculiar.

But with each name or label we not only create separation between people and things, we create separation between us and reality. Names and labels are by their nature limiting and to one degree or another always unreal.

There’s a certain degree of arrogance in presuming to give someone a name or something a label. Wherever there is arrogance there is also ignorance. The more we use names and labels, the more limited we make the world around us, and thus the more ignorant we become about the reality of that world.

Names and labels also give birth to confusion because each name or label means something different in each person’s mind. What I think of when I say your name is not the same thing that you think of when you say your name, and vice versa. Which thought is real? Neither thought is real, because each is about a name or a label that at best reflects conventional or relative truth. Names and labels are provisional, mere conventions.

We should be very careful about how we name and label people and things. For example, “enemy” and “evil” are names and labels that are used in countless ways by countless people to separate the relatively “good” from the relatively “bad”, which is relatively true at best and relatively false as often as not.

Anyone interested in absolute truth as opposed to relative truth should be very careful when speaking of or listening to names and labels. When God was asked to reveal his name on Mount Horeb, he declined. Instead, he referred to himself as “I AM WHO I AM.” Indeed he is; as are we; as are all other people to whom we give names; as are all other created things to which we give labels.