The Vicious Cycle of Judging

I saw a quote the other day that made me chuckle, “Sometimes you meet someone and you know from the first moment that you meet them that you want to spend your entire life without them!”

Or how about this one, “I can tell people are judgemental just by looking at them!”

Maybe you have your own that you have heard…All of them celebrating the human tendency to criticize and judge.

The readings today get right to the heart of the matter. Daniel 9 says it straight out, “We have sinned…We have not obeyed your servants and prophets…But yours, O God, are compassion and forgiveness. We rebelled against you and paid no heed to your command.”

In short, Daniel says that we know how God acts (with mercy, compassion and forgiveness). And we know what God asks of us (to act with mercy, compassion and forgiveness). And we know what God’s prophets and servants urged us to return to (acting with mercy, compassion and forgiveness) And yet what did we do instead? The exact opposite (acting with harshness, judgement, indifference and coldness).

Then Luke 6 just brings it all home. Jesus says to his disciples (and read these words slowly): “Be merciful, just as your God is merciful. Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”

Here are the key words in that reading and in this sequence:

Be merciful
Stop judging
Stop condemning
Forgive
Give

Where do all these judgements, condemnations and criticisms come from anyway?

Unlike Jesus, the Buddha lived for about 45 years after his enlightenment. This means that he had decades to expand upon his teachings, refine them and give practical advice around them. And so when we hear Jesus’ words today (which I wholeheartedly believe), we don’t hear as much by way of explanation as to HOW we put this into practice.

Buddhist practices, however, offer a lot of insight into this topic and I often turn to them as a helpful way to think about the how.

Buddha said that judging is really just the nature of our minds. Some of it is a necessity in this world (ex. Do I want to take this job or that one – which do I like better?) But for a lot of the time, our minds are constantly judging and getting caught up in our opinions and views, likes and dislikes. 

I found a blog post run by a group called Yobaba Lounge (in the Buddhist tradition) that offered some good insight when they said: “Most of us go through our days judging our experiences, other people, and ourselves. We “like” online comments by others, or pages on the Internet, we give a thumbs up or down to places we’ve visited, experiences we’ve had and people we’ve met. We rate, categorise and judge everything. It seems ingrained in our modern way of thinking…” They went on to say:

Judgement is our Ego’s primary reaction to a situation that causes it to feel challenged and/or threatened. Judgement is the natural means by which we determine threat and danger…And yet, those things we judge as “wrong” or “bad” often bother us so much that they can have a negative impact on our lives, driving us to rage, self-loathing, depression etc. In fact, our constant, and often unduly harsh, judgement of ourselves and others is often the root of all our suffering. And it seems that being overtly judgemental of the world around us not only perpetuates our outward striving but may also amplify internal strife.

As Brenee Brown explains…the desire to blame (and therefore pass judgement on) others often stems from our inability to deal with our own fear. In so many cases to “judge” becomes to “blame”.

The judgements we make can be directed outwards, at other people, but also inwards. This can result in feelings of anger, defensiveness, aggression and also shame and guilt….We all know from personal experience that when we act from such a place other people’s reactions to us also become skewed. We may trigger in others similar feelings of anger, judgement or shame.

The act of judging can therefore become a vicious cycle, and one from which it is difficult to extract ourselves when we’re spinning within it.”

After reading this I can understand more clearly why Jesus would be so insistent on our not judging. It poisons us and becomes a vicious cycle that hardens our heart.

Part of the key to releasing judgment, according to the Buddhists, is to bring the judgments into conscious awareness. They often speak of the “judging mind” (as if it’s another entity) to help our higher self separate from it a bit and to watch what our judging mind does in any given moment. This also helps us to have a choice about what we will do.

Obviously this takes practice – and sometimes a lot of it! – but we eventually witness a transition inside ourselves – away from the constriction of judgment towards the spaciosuness of joy, compassion, and generosity.

In part, I think this is what Jesus was talking about when he concludes today’s passage by saying, “For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.” It’s not that God is going to measure these things out for us and “punish” us for judging, we are doing it to ourselves! To live in a world of ego judgment is to live in a constricted, hardened hell. To live in a world of ego freedom is to live in an expansive, joyous heaven. 

For today, work to notice how your judging mind works (it may be exhausting to try to follow it all day!). Notice that you have a choice to give in to it or to release it and choose another response. Notice how often you have to keep repeating this process. Then just breathe and be in this present moment

And wishing all who mark the holiday a Happy St. Patrick’s Day!