Learning How To Practice 2: "Judging"

by Brian Hughes


One of the toughest challenges I find in a spiritual practice is judging others. Why do I feel the need to judge others when I have so many things about myself that need straightening out? Why? When I look deeply inside myself, I realize that there are a multitude of reasons why I judge others and none of them are real. I guess the number one reason I judge others is out of a feeling of self importance or superiority - which, of course is just insecurity. I need to look at a celebrity's shortcomings and say "I would never do that." And you know, when I looked at a Yahoo page yesterday that had all of these unfortunate mug shots of celebrities, I couldn't help to think that I am just one step away, one foolish act or indiscretion away from ending up with such an unsightly photo. Why should I judge how a celebrity looks in a mug shot when they have been arrested at four in the morning, and are probably not looking their best. How do I look at four in the morning? The more you choose to investigate your thoughts, your mind running at the speed of light, the more you take notice of these silly things and observations your mind gets caught up in. First of all, should I really care about their mug shots? What baring has this on my life? Actually, the way they entertain me, the way they are as artists, probably does more for me than their mug shots. Perhaps I should dwell on what they provide for me as entertainers, what joy they bring to my life, than their indiscretions.

Another reason I judge others is just to get along with some people - almost out of camaraderie. If a co-worker says something awful about someone, for instance: "Can you believe what an idiot he is?" I may not want to get into a disagreement with her, and what I'll do is just agree with her just to be over with it. This, for me, is really a no-no. It is just plain indifference. Plain laziness. If I don't want to get into a spiritual or moral discussion with her, about how we can all idiots at times, then the best thing to do in that scenario, would be to not say anything and excuse myself politely. Sometimes we get caught in other people's insecurity lairs. They feel so strongly about an opinion that they want us to side with them - even if they know they may not have all the facts. They need to feel that they are not the only ones who think a particular way, and out of laziness, I'll end up siding with them. This is not acting out of compassion, but acting out of selfishness and greed. I don't care if someone or something was perhaps incorrectly judged, I just want my life to move on to its next thing.

Judging others is so subtle. It happens all day long. The funny thing is that if we concentrated more on our own shortcomings, than on others, we'd get a lot farther in our spiritual practice. If I take into account all the minutes in a day I say something malicious, or untrue, or I say something I think is true but have no sufficient evidence - and if I could roll those minutes into looking deeply at myself, or at what is really going on - think of the energy I could use toward doing something good. Instead of judging someone's action, or mistakes, I should look into why they perhaps did it in the first place. Their could be a multitude of reasons why a particular person acted unskillfully. Perhaps they are suffering? Or maybe I could just put myself in their shoes and see the world through their eyes. In Buddhist practice, this line of thinking holds true for Britney Spears, our parents, or for a child killer on death row. To have learn to cultivate deep understanding for everyone who is suffering in a particular case is very important to a Buddhist. When a murderer kills someone, it is not just the person who they killed that is dead or that suffered, but the killer is suffering as well. And what of the families involved? Maybe the killer comes from a wonderful and kind family. They too will suffer. In those instances - nobody wins. Everyone suffers. Now, will I be able to think that way if someone killed someone in my family? I can't answer that. I don't know if my practice will be sufficient enough. But deep down I know in my heart what is right: that you cannot answer killing by killing. Love and compassion is much more mightier than killing. It does not mean that the killer wasn't wrong in what he did, but it is I believe our duty to be bigger than that. To be love and not be murder. To see all aspects of what is happening and see the suffering involved in all of that, and being an instrument of peace and not retribution. This has to be one of the most difficult parts of practice. The human itch is always to retaliate and judge someone who has wronged you. But I believe there is strong enough proof, than in most instances, killing begets more killing and the cycle continues and continues.

Another way to look at judgment from a Buddhist perspective is Karma. Good or bad Karma is dependent on everything we say, everything we think, and everything we do. If you have faith in Karma, and I believe it definitely involves some type of faith, then we have no need to think about or judge other people's actions, because they are creating their Karma by those actions. Buddhism calls for the person to answer for his or her own actions. There is no divine lawgiver. There is no one to partition for help. You create your own outcome. So, if we look at it that way, then people committing crime in this lifetime, or acting out of hatred and greed, might have to answer for it at some given point. It may be this lifetime, it might be another lifetime. Buddhists can't be concerned with that. All they are concerned with is that that particular person is suffering now. How can we ease that person's pain right now.

There is a line in an old cowboy song called "Streets of Laredo" in which the fallen gunfighter says:

"Then go write a letter to my grey-haired mother,
"An' tell her the cowboy that she loved has gone.
"But please not one word of the man who had killed me.
"Don't mention his name and his name will pass on."

This is a line from a gunfighter who has been mortally wounded. Yet what does he say? He wants the violence to stop right now. Don't mention his killer's name, for if you mention his name, someone might take retribution and kill him in his honor. The stricken gunfighter is not clinging to violence or retribution. He just wants the violence to end with his death. I like that message.

Judging is a big deal. It's the root cause why there is so much death and violence in the world. We can't seem to put a tourniquet on all our opinions and false judgments. It would seem like a pretty hard job to stop everyone from judging and murdering one another. The only thing I can do to stop judgment in the world, is to practice not judging people in my life. I cannot change the world, but I can live by example. And how do I do that? By noticing every time I make a silly statement; mark it my head as wrong, don't cling to it and move on. The more we label our thoughts, the more we find that what we think most of the time is just plain silly. It's just an excuse for our mind to do something and to feel important. I think we need to face the fact that most of the judgments we make about others are not real, or factual. That to spread malicious lies and gossip about people, even those we think might deserve it, does little else but to assert our small mind rather than expanding our magnificent mind. And that we really have no right, nor the time, to judge other people, when we have a voluminous amount of work to do in our own life.