Non-judging helps with being here just now. As you are. This centered, grounding stance allows us to proceed into our practice. Our practice is not just when we sit on the cushion, it is with us all the time. Non-judging allows us to experience the everyday without separating ourselves through whatever narrative our judgmental thoughts might concoct.
If you still yourself and take note of your mindstream you will quickly discover that a great deal of your ongoing internal chatter is judging.
As an experiment, next time you go to the grocery store pay careful attention to your thoughts. Start in the parking lot.
It might go something like this: I can’t park in my usual spot. Or even my row. Wow! It’s crowded. If it’s this crowded in the parking lot imagine what it’s like inside. This is going to be irritating. It also doesn’t feel super safe in these COVID times.
If you notice in this example, there is of course, a valid and necessary use for judgment. It helps you to choose a parking space and perhaps you choose to come back another, less crowded time when you might feel safer. But once you lay in another judgment, start telling a story with the thinking – oh, it’s going to be crowded, I’m going to have a bad time – I don’t feel safe. Well, then you are entering into discursive, not-helpful thinking.
Of course, we need to choose wisely throughout our lives. Once inside the store you might take a pack of chocolate chip cookies because you like them better than oatmeal. Or you might grab some fuji apples because you really don’t like granny smiths. But, in the choosing do you notice other, unhelpful judgmental thoughts?
Oh, I shouldn’t be getting these cookies! I need to lose 5 pounds. I’m getting off track. I wish I was more motivated and so on and so forth. Before you know it, you’ve gone down a maybe familiar but certainly unhelpful path.
We’ve been judging since the dawn of man. Those of us who were wise judges – that’s a tiger, back off. These same berries were tasty last time I found them. Oh wait, these berries are a little different, they have a white center and the birds have left them on the bushes. I’ll steer clear. Those judgments kept us alive and stronger, and eventually to the choice of a good mate which led to the survival of our genes. It is the natural order of things.
Judgments have an important and deeply seated place in our lives. It is the secondary set of stories we lay on that can get us into trouble. These subplots seem to spring unbidden from some unknown place deep inside; often we find ourselves reacting to different situations with the same over-arching narrative that we’ve always told ourselves. We don’t stop to inquire whether or not the judgment is helpful/true. We are so used to thinking in this way. We simply continue on.
So many of our judgments about fellow humans are based on bias, for example. We tend to feel more friendly to those we know or with whom we feel a similarity. So, when we do encounter people who are different or unknown it is often our impulse to label and to judge. We can and do get caught in all sorts of discursive thinking and narratives about the “other” when we begin with a bias.
Taken in a larger context, when entire groups of people form judgements about one another without taking time to understand or investigate the truth, broad, long-standing and deeply entrenched discord results – racism, wars – all the ways we discount and destroy one another.
Given all that, and assuming we don’t find it useful to engage in divisive and violent behavior how do we take the useful aspect of judging (remember the tiger?) and drop the destructive, non-helpful aspects?
As always, we start with an awareness of the thinking. Note when we are heading into a stream of thoughts. Note if there’s a sense of being hooked by the thoughts. Often the awareness in and of itself can bring us back to a less reactive place.
And we can bring discernment to bear. Discernment gives us the ability to make a choice or distinction but doesn’t lead us down a judgmental path.
Let’s go back to the grocery store and the produce aisle. Back to the apples. Many grocery stores carry a wide array of choices. Fuji, Pink Lady, Gala, Braeburn, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Granny Smiths. Organic varieties of most of the above.
Just here we are quickly filtering and choosing. Some of us may make our choice around whether or not the produce is organic, others might select for price. No matter the decision, there is generally some sort of decision. You make that decision by assessing and acting. This is discernment, there is no added layer of: I buy organic, the rest of these people are destroying the planet. Or, I can only afford the apples that are on sale, these rich people around me have no idea what it’s like to have to shop on a budget. They are thoughtless. They have it so easy.
Now we have veered from the helpful activity of discerning the situation and making a considered decision to deciding we are surrounded by a sea of wealthy, thoughtless, unsympathetic apple shoppers. This is just one example of how our minds, spinning unhelpful stories about a common task, can trip us up. Can create suffering.
There you are standing in front of those beautiful, gleaming apples, seething with resentment because of some concocted story.
Instead, can you note the coolness of the apple as you touch it? Can you feel the weight of it in your hand? It’s firmness? Now you are in the moment.
Non-judging allows us to experience the everyday without separating ourselves through whatever narrative our judgmental thoughts might create.
You can see that going about our day with discernment as opposed to judging is helpful.
How about in our formal practice? Here, too, non-judging is a crucial attitude.
As Jon Kabat-Zinn says in his book “Full Catastrophe Living”
“When practicing mindfulness, it is important to recognize this judging quality of mind when it appears and to intentionally assume the stance of an impartial witness.”
In other words, as you sit and meditate, if you find yourself judging the experience (this is boring when will it end?) your sensations (my foot is asleep again. I really am not any good at this) etcetera, become aware of the judging, note that it is happening. There is no need to stop or reject the thinking – rejection is just another form of judging. Simply note it.
During simple breath meditation, we often note our minds and their crazy stories. The mind will spin a tale whenever it can. This is normal. Even seasoned meditators find themselves caught up.
The instruction is to simply return to the breath. To note the distraction. It is NOT to think critically about your ineptitude. Doing so, not only continues the distraction through the judging but, frankly, you are berating yourself for a perfectly human quality…. The discursive mind.
So, sit and be kind to yourself. Walk in the world and think kindly of others. And breath. Be free in the knowledge that this moment, right now is what you have. And that you, in this moment, are just right as you are.