It seems like every year or two I rediscover the topic of nonjudgment. At that point I feel a deep connection with it, make it the focus of my daily practice for several weeks, and then it slowly recedes from view, to be rediscovered again in another couple of years.
It’s a very personal topic to write about, in that judgment, in both good and bad senses, is central to my personality. Judgment is essentially a filter, a mental filtering process, whereby we let in only what we decide is worthy to be let in. We decide that we will love this and not that, accept this and not that, believe in this and not that. We strain out what we see as the impurities, and only let through what passes our tests. We don’t want to find ourselves drinking poison.
I’m a serious filterer (if that’s a word). Right now, I am getting in touch with the cost of all that filtering. It means constantly standing apart in a state of displeasure. It’s wearying, deadening, and guilt-producing. Something in me is very tired of all the constant judgment.
I think the debilitating effects of judgment are why so many people, even non-spiritual seekers, place a strong value on nonjudgment. We are all seeking relief from those debilitating effects. Most of the ways people seek that relief, however, strike me as just so much denial. My two favorite (meaning, least favorite) ways are first, everything that happens is really perfect. And second, everything that happens just is—you can’t judge it, it just is. Notice that those two are totally incompatible. The second says that standards don’t apply to “what is,” so stop applying them. The first says that standards do apply, and everything that happens perfectly meets them.
Either way, in my view, you end up throwing away the filter only to swallow the poison. In the first (“everything is perfect”), you end up celebrating the fact that “Hitler was doing his perfect job.” In the second (“just accept what is”), you end up saying things like “My husband shouldn’t be more honest…because he isn’t.” In both, you buy peace at the expense of honest acknowledgment of what’s in front of you. Saying that Hitler was doing his perfect job, or that liars shouldn’t be more honest, is just plain denial. Only now it is dressed up as spiritual wisdom. Now, I want peace as much as anyone else, but I can’t accept it at that price.
This has been the struggle for me. Judgment is simply measuring things against a standard and deciding how they measure up. In my mind, the only rational place to turn off judgment is when the standard—the highest standard—has truly been met. In other words, it only makes sense to turn off judgment in the presence of perfection. In Course terms, this means that when it comes to reality—true reality—we stand before it in complete nonjudgment. Nothing else makes sense. But when it comes to illusion, a place where nothing is perfect, judgments have to apply (though hopefully we learn to increasingly let the Holy Spirit judge through us). Nothing in this world of illusion meets the standard of perfection. If we fail to note that, we have bought peace at the expense of sanity.
So that is what I am trying to practice now: standing in nonjudgment before the reality that lies beyond appearances, even while I realize that everything my eyes see is subject to judgment (though, again, ideally by Someone Who can sort it all out better than I can). I am trying, therefore, to stand before the reality of my brother in nonjudgment, without trying to make denial-based excuses for his current behavior (“it’s all perfect”; “it’s just what is”).
