Transforming Judgement Into Caring

Join Venerable Thubten Semkye in an “experiment” to reduce our judgement towards others and to increase our caring and compassion.

Start by bringing to mind someone you saw today and recall what you noticed about them. Perhaps you focused on their clothes, car or something they said and formed an opinion. In this meditation, follow Venerable Semkye’s guidance in transforming critical thoughts into wishes for the other person’s well-being and happiness. Impressions like, “she looks rushed” change into “I hope she arrives where she is going safely.”

This skill takes time to develop and is a practical and helpful way to transform the mind. We hope you find it useful in your daily life.

Transcript

So let's just take a moment to settle into our seat,

Whether on the cushion or on a chair.

And really get a sense or get,

Experience the moment.

Now the present moment is an impermanent phenomenon,

It's moving past the speed of light every nanosecond.

But let's try to see if we can leave the past at the door with our shoes,

And not travel into the future,

Whether it be the next 15 minutes or tomorrow,

And try to bring our bodies and minds present into this space.

And to be able to utilize the connection between the body and mind,

We try to get ourselves into a meditation posture that feels firm and stable,

But yet at ease.

So let's begin,

First of all,

Is to make sure that our spines are straight,

But not tight.

As if someone was gently pulling on a string at the crown of our head,

Just kind of gently pulling to elongate the discs.

If you don't have to use the back of the chair,

That's great,

Because then the back will have to support you.

And then our hands are palms on top of one another with thumbs touching,

And they sit on our thighs below our belly.

That really stabilizes the body,

The energies in the body.

The shoulders are level.

The eyes are just slightly open to let some light in,

So we don't get drowsy.

You don't focus at anything,

Just gently open the eyes.

If you can,

If not,

You can leave your eyes closed to prevent drowsiness.

And then the tongue is gently placed at the upper palate,

The roof of the mouth.

And the chin is slightly tucked down,

Not so much that we're going to nod off,

But enough if it's too high,

That sometimes elicits some excitement and distraction.

So bring the chin gently down a little bit below level,

And just really get a sense of being an embodied being,

Appreciating the body's capacity to travel,

To transport this mind and heart of ours.

For all of its complexity,

Appreciating its good health and its resiliency,

So just sit in that knowing.

And if there's any kind of tightness or tiredness in the body this morning,

Then bring your mind's attention to that place,

And then imagine that it loosens and softens,

Unwinds.

Could be in the belly,

The shoulders,

The brow.

Make sure that the brow is gently open,

Not furrowed.

The jaw is at ease.

The tummy is softened,

Not tight.

To note any nervousness or self-consciousness,

Just let that be at ease.

And then one of the things that we do that is very important at the Abbey here,

That before we begin any meditation or any of our activities here,

We like to set a motivation.

So pretty much what's alive for me this morning that I want to share with you is that in Buddhism it is said that the mind is the source of happiness and pain.

And I find that to be a very powerful and empowering statement.

It gives us a lot of agency to decide how we want to respond to any given situation that comes up or any exchange we have any time in our lives.

It puts how we experience our lives on our plate,

Not on anybody else's.

And that's a great kindness because other people have enough to process and deal with in their own lives to find happiness and not suffer without giving them the responsibility for our happiness and suffering as well.

And so one of the main points of spiritual practice when we're practicing the Buddha's teachings and one of the main explorations is to understand what the mind as a source of happiness and pain actually means.

What does it mean to have a say about what we experience and how we respond to the things that arise in our lives?

And that our spiritual practice and exploration helps us to discover what are our values?

What are the qualities such as kindness and care and wisdom and compassion that really give meaning and purpose to our lives?

And to be able to gently mitigate and to reduce sometimes the other responses that come when we meet the experiences in our life which are anger and fear,

Clinging,

Arrogance,

Jealousy.

And what makes this quite a journey and a process of growth is that a lot of times our own wisdom voice seems to get drowned out by other people's ideas and opinions and suggestions and advice.

It's almost like a little bit of static on the radio waves of our own wisdom,

Our own clarity.

They mean well,

But in the end it's up to us to clarify what is important and true for us.

And to hold steady and live through them,

Whatever those qualities,

Values that we cherish.

And that the world can use all the kindness and compassion that we can grow.

And that will make this world a more peaceful,

Connected and compassionate place for all beings.

We are important.

It matters.

And so let's use this time together to gain some wisdom and insights about our hearts in order to be of the greatest benefit.

And so check again with your meditation posture,

Make sure you haven't lost it.

So we'll take some minutes here to do a meditation on the breath.

It is one of the objects of meditation that we have accessible to us every moment of our life.

And it's a great antidote for when things are moving a little bit too fast,

Including ourselves,

Something unexpected happens,

Any type of fear or concern arises,

Coming back to the breath is a great place to get ourselves back to balance.

And this is a lot more difficult than it sounds because as we're trying to focus on one object,

Our mind,

Which just loves to think about all sorts of things,

Is going to want to multitask while we're trying to hold our focus on the breath.

So we'll do our best,

Either at the rising and falling of the belly,

Which is probably where you can really sense the breath coming in and out of the body more noticeably.

Or at the nostrils above the upper lip,

Which is a little bit more subtle,

But that can work as well.

So as we do the first two breaths,

Make a decision about which place you would like to focus on your breath and stay at that place.

And then inevitably,

Either there's going to be sounds or smells from the outside that may want to distract you.

Or thoughts of the past,

Thoughts of the future,

Maybe thoughts about how you're doing.

If that arises,

Which it may well do,

Is to just gently bring the mind back to the breath.

It's almost like training a little puppy how to paper train them.

You know,

They wander off to paper,

Go pee someplace else,

You just gently pick them up and bring them back.

You don't beat them,

You don't berate them,

You just say,

Come on back,

Firmly,

Consistently.

And that'll really give our minds an opportunity to stabilize as we move into the analytical meditation.

So let's take a few minutes,

Once again,

Just do the best you can,

Using the breath as our object of meditation.

So without shifting out of whatever calmness and stability meditating on the breath may have given you,

We now are going to use that stable and somewhat clear mind to investigate some open-ended questions that I have garnered from the previous chapter of what we will be hearing today from an open-hearted life.

And this is an opportunity to just look at our experiences in life,

Seeing how we respond to them,

And how we may be able to transform them for the better if they need to be moved into a more gentle,

Open-hearted way,

Or to nourish those experiences in our life where we really meet them with an open-hearted mind and heart.

So this one is an analytical meditation on replacing the judgmental attitude with compassion.

And it's mostly examining how we sometimes make very quick judgments about others without any information about them,

And many times the judgments are quite inaccurate.

So this meditation will help us to train our minds to bring maybe a little bit of compassion and a kind thought when we look at others,

And to remember that just like us,

They want to be happy and not suffer,

So very much like us.

So the meditation begins like this.

It's a little bit of Venerable Chodron calls an experiment.

So recall someone you noticed today.

Maybe someone who was on the sidewalk as you stopped at a traffic light.

Maybe they were at the grocery store or a gas station,

Or maybe somebody in your neighborhood.

Or maybe there was a short exchange with someone.

See if you can recollect something this morning.

If not this morning,

Sometimes this week that you can remember.

Something that you noticed,

Something that you noted about somebody.

And then making your own judgments.

Something that you noticed,

Something that you noted about somebody.

And then making that note or recalling them.

What did you notice about them,

Or what did your mind say about them?

Maybe it was what they were wearing,

Or maybe the car they were driving,

Or if it was an exchange,

The sound of their voice or the expression on their face.

Maybe it was the shape of their body or their age or their hairstyle.

Really hone in on what it was specifically that you noticed about them.

So now that we've got that person or that exchange in mind,

Let's go a little bit deeper.

And examine what was our inner response to what we experienced with them.

Who did we see?

Was it a positive description or comment that we said to ourselves about them?

Or was it a judgmental or more negative description or comment that we said to ourselves about them?

Once again,

This is not to be guilty or feel badly,

Just to note.

What was the commentary that arose?

It might have only been for five seconds.

It could have been a commentary that went on for quite some time.

After the exchange,

After the noting of this person,

Just become very aware of what you said to yourself after that all passed.

And so then Venerable encourages us,

This is a form of mind training.

She said to them,

These are just examples,

You will have to make up your own example.

Train your mind to say,

There's someone who looks rushed.

May she be relaxed,

Be calm and get to where she's going safely.

She looks flustered.

I hope she regains her confidence.

Those kids are giving their parents a really hard time.

May that family be harmonious and help one another.

In other words,

We look at others with tolerance,

Understanding and compassion.

In other words,

We look at others with tolerance,

Understanding and compassion.

So take the person or the exchange that you noted,

And if it was not a very kind description or commentary to yourself about them,

See if you can change that to something that would be more compassionate,

More understanding.

And if it was a thought that arose that was kind and was compassionate,

Then really nourish that and really hold your heart and mind in that particular feeling.

And then the conclusion that Venerable comes to and encourages us to think about is that training our minds in such thoughts may seem artificial,

Almost contrived at first,

Inauthentic,

Not genuine.

But after a while,

Our compassionate thoughts will flow like a gentle river,

Connecting us with others and with our own good hearts.

So just settle into that possibility of every time we see somebody,

We have an exchange,

That instead of going to our assessment or evaluation or judgment about them,

Based on a very short exchange,

Is to go with the overall understanding that may they be happy and not suffer.

And that will slowly become the default.

And what would that be like?

So then what we do on the back end of our meditations here at the Abbey,

We set a motivation in the beginning to really get clear about what our intention is for doing what we're doing.

And then on the back end of all of our virtuous activity here,

We rejoice that perhaps we have gained some wisdom,

Some understanding,

We've grown our good qualities,

Not just the good qualities of ourselves,

But to see the good qualities growing in each other.

And what we like to do is dedicate or to really hold that wonderful virtue and goodness that we have created in our minds and hearts,

So that we may be able to continue to grow more and more to being a whole human being,

Capable of living a life with meaning and to be of benefit to others.

So we dedicate that goodness and that virtue.