No Judging

Last week I was teaching my Dhamma students about the four Divine Abodes. It is one of my favourite subjects and gives me a lot of joy to talk about it as well as to develop them as qualities in my mind. The four Divine Abodes, for those who are not aware of them, are: Metta (Loving-kindness), Karuna (Compassion), Muditha (Sympathetic Joy) and Uppeka (Equanimity).

During the class, one of the students said in response to something I was saying,...."Aren't these qualities like making judgements?'. At that time I gave a reply to her, which as I was saying, I knew something was missing in my answer. So I parked the question in my mind. About an hour later once the class was done, unfortunately, I realised what the answer was. These qualities are not judgements......it's basically the lack of judgements. Developing these qualities make your mind open to all experiences without the involvement and the complications associated with judging.

Think about it.....we live a life full of judgements...be it about the weather, next door neighbours, physical appearance of ourselves and others, jobs, our partners, children, friends, how we feel on a day to day basis to basically anything you can think of. We make judgements on everything! Rarely do we not judge and to most of you who are reading this the question that would arise in the mind is "How can we live life if there is judging?". However, it is in the none judging that we can experience things as they are and it is in only that we can live a full life. Goes against common sense doesn't it?

For if were to judge, the experience we receive is conditioned upon the judging.....for example if I think I feel a bit moody today, then my experiences from that time onwards will be through my lense of "I am moody". If I think that my co-worker's manner of speaking is rude, then I look at her and what she says, through the lense of "rudeness". So my experience is already diluted...think about it. What you think, is what you will experience. It's a bit mind-boggling because it puts enormous responsiblity on our shoulders. Because, essentially what I am saying here is that you make your own experiences and that it is not because of someone or something external to us...and that is very hard to digest even for me at times....but this is true and if we come to realise it and come to terms with it, it will make our lives so much easier and lighter.

When one develops the divine abodes one learns to experience things without judgement. Though it might sound absurd to think one could live without judgements, it is in that none judging one becomes free from the negative and positive experiences that come along with judging. Maybe I am losing you or have lost you by now already but hopefully you will stop to do some contemplation on what I said.

How do these qualities teache us to just experience things as they are? Let's take compassion and a related situation as an example......let's say your friend has broken up with his or her partner and feeling sad....compassion is the quality of the heart that makes you understand where a person is coming from rather than thinking why or why not one should feel the way they do. The moment we make that judgment of you should or should not feel a particular way or it should or should not have happened, everything you see and do gets filtered through that judgement. So you are unable to be compassionate anymore because you have already made a judgement. So you are not responding in totality. Response is conditioned upon your judgement. This is why many dissapointments and misunderstandings in life occur. We don't experience things as they are but rather we experiencec them through our judgments of them. This applies not only to our interactions with others but most importantly to interactions with ourselves.

This is why a lot of people in this world are restless, unhappy, sad and depressed. We are never content with ourselves. We always judge ourselves. Be it the way we look, things we have and not have, how we feel....we judge. When we judge our minds move in either the positive direction or the negative direction. It is never at it's equilibrium. When the mind moves we experience the negative and the positive. Of course when it is the positive we like it but when it is the negative we don't. But even the positive does not last long does it? Has anyone of you ever had a positive experience which lasted for months, years etc....the answe is "NO' becasue these experiences cannot and will not stay permanent. So you go on in life bobbing up and down like a yo-yo....and how frustrating that is.

When and if you develop the divine abodes the mind learns not to move. Of course this takes a lot of time...maybe for some it may not but usually it takes a lot of time and patience. But gradually the mind reduces the level of bobbing....and with that you come to experience a happiness that lasts much longer than a normal positive experience. It's a happiness not born out of an external stimuli but rather an internal response which has nothing to do with what's going around us. It's a happiness born out of knowing that no matter what, I can find my equilibrium....no matter what I can get my yo-yo to come to a rest, at least for a while.

It's a wonderful feeling to be able to do that. In it lies a lot of freedom; freedom from both elation (the positive) and disappointment (the negative). This does not mean that you become like a robot and not feel anything. In fact it's the very opposite....you become aware, fully conscious of the experiences but you are not moved by it because there is no judging involved. The feeling is incredible....I can only ask you to test this out for yourself.

Be patient and courageous. Have faith in the Buddha and Dhamma to guide you instead of you taking control. You may experience doubt, fear and even a sense of losing control...questions like "How can I?", "Why should I?", "To what purpose?" might enter your mind. That is why one needs a lot of courage and faith in the Dhamma. Faith is not blind belief but the conviction that arises out of your own experiences of the Dhamma. For that you need patience. Dhamma takes time to blossom in your heart...it's a life long process and not something to be achieved so that you can get on with life....it's a slow, gradual process to be unfolded.

So put forth effort from this day on to find that Dhamma in your heart. It's something worth putting all the effort and time you can find.....because it's the surest thing in the world that would give you peace and contentment!