There is a time and a place for labels and for definitions (conclusions, especially final ones, I'm not so sure about) Yet as I see it they can become harmful if we seek some degree of freedom of mind.
Take sexuality (the word often attracts interest and attention....
) As I see it there is a wide and full spectrum between the world's most effeminate gender conditioned female and our world's most macho male. We all find ourselves within the spectrum, each unique. Sadly labels can take over and in looking at others they draw forth their pernicious effect - we see the labels not the person before us.
But worse, we label ourselves. Define ourselves. We can become a hard centre, identifying ourselves as this or that. A unique person, full of potential, yet congealed into a finished product from which the world about us, and those in it, are judged and placed into their appropriate catagories. Yet, born in another time, another place, the "self" we are often so defensive of, sometimes so proud of, would have had another centre, different conclusions.
Which is why the zens speak of seeking our original face before we were born. That seeking can make life a great adventure, one full of surprises. And words like "grace" and "mercy" can begin to find a place in our unfolding lives.
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