What Gives Us the Right to Judge? (How meditation supports us in suspending judgement.)
The more that I watch my mind in meditation the more clearly I see how easily judgments arise: about myself, about others, about circumstances and experiences. About everything.
We think we’re in a position to know, to judge. By judgment I’m not referring to the myriad ways, small and big, in which life asks us to make decisions. We reach a fork in the road: do we go right or left? In our business or our personal life, do we make decision A or decision B? This kind of judgment—let’s refer to this as discernment—is necessary.
But if we want to live a more fulfilling and happy life it’s worthwhile to suspend our judgments for a period of time to understand how our minds work. That’s one important aspect of mindfulness meditation: noticing what is happening in the present moment without judgment.
Judgments can and do block our ability to see clearly: we think we already know, so there’s no space for wisdom to arise.
Specifically, in this post I’m referring to judgment as moral condemnation. As I started to pay attention to my own mind more clearly, I started noticing the ways I was judging myself and others with frequency, sometimes harshly.
Some of us draw the conclusion that we’re less than worthy others; some of us think that we’re more important than others. Sometimes we slip into feeling inferior to others and in other situations we’re deluded into believing we’re superior. In either scenario, this judging mind deludes us into a sense of separation and it’s that sense of separation that is the source of so much of our suffering.
Our minds divide people and experiences into dualistic categories: good/bad; right/wrong; worthy/unworthy. Our ego wants to grasp after experience, to possess it, to put experiences and people into a box so it can manufacture an illusory sense of security—all in the vain attempt to deny the one thing that it is truly undeniable: most of life is outside of our control.
Our genetic inheritance, the environment into which we we were born and raised, how we were parented—factors that play a huge role into shaping the person we are today: all occurred without our consent.
After practicing meditation for long enough, eventually you’ll have to concede the truth that you’ve been trying to avoid all along: you can’t even control your own mind.
You can’t stop your mind from thinking; you can’t control the type of thoughts your mind produces, the emotions or feelings you experience. The judgments that arise in your mind also arise all on their own, without you consciously and deliberately willing them into existence. Though you may try to push them away, they get stored somewhere, deep in your unconscious, deep in your body.
However, you can choose to observe your thoughts, feelings and judgments—to observe them with a curious, open mind, rather than to unconsciously identify with them, and rather than to believe in everything that appears within awareness.
This is the essence of mindfulness meditation: observing what happens in the present moment without judgment.
We’re very quick to judge, but rarely do we judge our ability to judge—not only to consider if we have the right to judge, but even assuming the latter, can we possibly be in a position to know enough to judge others? Or even to judge ourselves?
To be in a position to truly pass moral judgment on another, we would have to be in a position to understand all of the life circumstances and conditions that made this person into who they are today. You would also have to be in a position to know and judge all of the circumstances and factors that made you into who you are—a position of omniscience and objectivity that is every bit as impossible for you to have about yourself as it is for other people.
For example, when someone is rude to us in passing there is a tendency to take it personally, and in taking offense we pass judgment on this person. But we don’t know what might have just happened to that person that accounts for their rude behavior. Perhaps they just got into an argument with their significant other, or they were fired from work or were themselves just mistreated by someone else. Not that any of this would justify their right to behave to you rudely, but from time to time we’ve all been guilty of taking our bad mood out on those around us.
More significantly, you have no idea what kind of life this person has had up to the very moment in which you just interacted with them. The most significant portion of people’s conditioning comes early in childhood, and of course was thus entirely out of their control. If they didn’t receive love and kindness as a child it’s likely the case that they’re not skilled at extending love and kindness to other people as an adult.
Some powerful examples of this come from what we know about the thin line between victim and perpetrator in the vicious cycle of abuse: as many as 30%-40% of people who were abused as children grow up to become abusers themselves (“Breaking the Cycle of Abuse,” The Guardian). The article continues:
“When you look at the evidence, what comes as a big surprise is that it’s the very start of a child’s life that matters most...by the age of three, nurses can identify those children who will go on to become violent offenders. By three, these children are 10 times more aggressive than the most peaceful children.”
We inherit systems of beliefs—from our religion, our culture, our parents—which powerfully shape our moral intuitions and judgments about the world. Each of us are also born with our own temperament, that direct our behavior in particular ways. Even if you received a good education, were taught critical thinking and have an inclination towards independent mindedness, all of your thoughts, decisions and actions in the present moment were shaped by all of the causes and conditions that led to this present moment, the most significant parts of which you had absolutely no say in deciding.
While contemplating these ideas does have big societal level implications, I’m not asking you to engage in moral or political philosophy, but instead to turn your attention inward: to take a moment to pause and notice how easily and quickly your mind tends to form judgements about others and about yourself.
What are some of the ways in which you are quick to judge yourself? When and why do you tend to judge others?
Pause right now. Pick one of these questions and contemplate it. Write down any answers that come to mind.
These can be two excellent questions on which to journal. In my next post, I will be providing an inquiry-based guided-meditation practice that will allow you to create space so that you might be able to deeper contemplate these two questions. It can be even more effective if you do this journaling after working with one of these questions in the meditation practice.