The importance of good judgement - a short talk

Good morning. It's just a small gathering this morning, but that's nice too sometimes. I wanted to say something about judgment and non-judgment, because the idea of non-judgment is sort of— it's often talked about in spiritual circles or As a therapist, psychotherapist, I hear it talked about in counseling circles. But actually, I think, I think there's a bit of a confusion sometimes. And I think this confusion arises from the fact that judgment in the English language, when we think of the word judgment, we often think of a sort of meanness that goes along with it. I'm judging you, grrr. But judgment just means discernment, telling the difference between one thing and another. And we judge all the time. Do I prefer tea or coffee. That's a very simple judgment. Sometimes it's a very simple judgment call. For some people it can be quite a complicated decision sometimes. But when we're thinking about how to be kind, to be somebody, we make a judgment. This is the appropriate way to be kind, to be this person. This is what's in that person's best interest. Now we're not always right. And that's important to bear in mind. We're very fallible in that regard. But in order to be compassionate, you need some wisdom, and wisdom is about making judgments, it's about discernment. Prajna, the Buddhist word for wisdom, means to see beneath the surface of things. This is the same— the word diagnosis has the same root meaning, seeing beneath the surface of things. So we could say there's good judgments and bad judgments. When a doctor makes a diagnosis, he tries to see beneath the surface of the symptoms to the underlying cause, and a good doctor will see what the underlying cause is and treat that. A less good doctor might just treat the symptoms, or might look at the symptoms and see an underlying cause that isn't really there, and then you don't get the right sort of treatment, so you don't get better. So judgment is important. The Buddha judged people all the time, not in a mean way, but in the way of making discernments about what was the appropriate teaching for people. What was the appropriate act— course of action for them to take, what was the appropriate way for him to behave around them. So this is the important thing about judgment. It should never be removed from compassion. It should never be separate from love. It always, in the ideal, comes out of a place of kindness. It's similar to the word I think there's a similar shadow around the word acceptance. We talk about the Buddha accepts us just as we are, but that doesn't mean that the Buddha doesn't also want us to be the best versions of ourselves, and sometimes he knows that's impossible. But it does mean that regardless of whether we can be the best version of ourselves or not, we're still loved by the Buddha. This is the crucial thing. Judgment must go hand in hand with loving-kindness. So one of the dangers of talking about non-judgment actually is that we, we sort of confuse ourselves and we can't actually make a decision or we can't actually choose something because we think to do so would be making a judgment. We hold back. Because what we're really trying to do is not be mean, but because we've heard about non-judgmental, because we associate judgmentalism with being mean, we hold back on making a discernment because the two things feel so entwined sometimes. Actually, we do need to make decisions, but we need to make loving decisions. The other aspect about judgment is that Regardless of what we have as our ideal, we probably are making judgments about people, some of which will be mean, because that's how it is to be human. Sometimes we will be looking down on people, sometimes we'll be looking up to people, and sometimes that can have a meanness that goes along with it. And if we just think, "Well, I'm supposed to be non-judgmental," We can end up pretending that that part of ourselves isn't really there, that we're not really judging because we're not supposed to do that. And while we're pretending that all the time, the meanness is sneaking out in our interactions with those people. Much better to know what the judgment is that you're actually making, and then you can choose whether that's a good judgment or not. Or you can think, "Oh, well, maybe I'm right, but it's not necessarily very loving to be—" 'You know, how can I bring some kindness into this situation?' It may be that you're right and somebody really is tripping themselves up in a way that you can see and they can't see. Well, that's a good judgment if it's true. But if you then use that to put that person down or to be mean to them or to think that you know, you're more loved than they are, then that becomes unskillful, it becomes a bad judgment. But if you use that judgment, "Oh, there they go tripping themselves up again, they can't see that they're doing it," if you're able to be kind alongside that, if that produces a feeling of warmth and compassion, fellow feeling, That's a good judgment, because not only does it mean that you perhaps feel tender-hearted towards them in their foolishness, recognizing that we also trip ourselves up without knowing it sometimes. It may mean that you can think, well, what is the most helpful thing to do in this circumstance? And even if you get that wrong, as long as there's that attitude of kindness, of tender-heartedness, that's what's received, the spirit, the spirit that you're acting in, as much as whether the action itself turns out to be the right one or not. And of course, the final thing to say is that whenever we talk about ideals, we can end up slipping into judging ourselves, and there's the same trap there. Actually, as I said, it's appropriate to know whether we're making mean judgments or good judgments, but we can easily, in discerning our own foolishness, we can easily get into being mean towards ourselves. So the same rule applies. See what's really going on. See whether you're being mean or whether you're being kind, or whether you're making good or bad judgments. But don't then be mean towards yourself. Maintain an attitude of loving kindness. To yourself, if you can. And of course, the bigger container for all this is that the Buddha is sending kindness towards us regardless of whether we're making good or bad judgments. And he's sending kindness towards the people that we're in relationship with, whether we can be kind to them or not. And sometimes just remembering that is enough to undermine that meanness or selfishness which often goes along with judgment and transform that judgment into a skillful discernment that has compassion at the center of it. Namamitabhum.