It’s so easy to judge ourselves, isn’t it? ‘Judge’ in the sense of putting ourselves down. We do something we think is wrong and we suffer regret. Or we wonder: am I a good person?
Is this self-judging a flaw in our character? Something conditioned by culture? Maybe, a way we hurt ourselves? Or something entirely different?
Maybe we’re judgmental of others. We might feel another person is too blind to see the truth. Or they’re trying to undermine us. Or that they think they’re “better” than us.
Or maybe we sometimes feel we’ve wasted time, or our lives. When it seems we’re wasting time, what’s wasting away? It’s wonderful we don’t want our lives to be meaningless. But maybe we know this yearning not to be meaningless because we thankfully know meaning; we know moments when we’ve done something that feels glorious, that make a difference.
Or we feel vulnerable. Being alive means we’re vulnerable. When we love, we’re vulnerable. But our vulnerability, although frightening, is a life-giving gift. Because we’re vulnerable we can learn; we can feel. We can act. Vulnerability can reveal our need for and our essential connection to others. It can reveal our sincere presence right here and now.
Sometimes, we get competitive with our ideas and turn a discussion into an argument we feel we must win. But what is it we think we lose if we don’t get the other person to accept our viewpoint? Underlying the passion of this competition is often a feeling we could be mistaken. The more insecure or wrong we feel, the more vigorously we might defend our position. When I was still teaching, I noticed the more experienced and comfortable I was in my profession, the more open I was to a diversity of ideas⎼ and more capable at helping students be themselves.
Or we see ourselves as “bad” because we so want to be “good.” Or, when we judge others, or ourselves, it could be because we feel, deep down, there’s something more to us; there’s such a wonderful possibility in us of living more deeply and kindly.
Recently, I became anxious about a medical procedure I needed to undergo. One doctor reminded me of a mindfulness teaching I thought I already knew: we often feel anxious because we know calm and want to live. This was a helpful reminder.
Right now, we’re all suffering from a divisive world, and from wars and other unbelievable horrors. But our understanding of how threatening divisiveness is to our survival is aided by knowing the need for cooperation and peace. We might know, somewhere inside us, a communion sits waiting beyond the calamity.
Because what’s not often seen in our perception of division, competition, duality, self-judgment is there’s something distorting our thinking process or conclusions about the world, about life.
For example, when we regret something we did, it can be a sign that we need to learn something more. Or deep down, that we fear something is lacking or missing in ourselves. And what’s missing will be seen by others. But it’s the clarity of our idea of ourselves that’s lacking. It’s trying to be, or feeling forced to be, what we’re not.
And although it can be incredibly useful at times, this is what thought, or especially abstract thought does inherently. It analyzes and separates. The poet and translator David Hinton, in his book Existence: A Story, points out, thought is always about something outside itself. So, it’s always creating the illusion of me/here, you-everything-else/there.
The Chinese classic, the Tao Te Ching, expresses this wonderfully, “The Tao/Way that can be named is not the eternal Tao.” Everything that we name, delineate pushes back against the unnamed, or an “opposite” side. We know up because of down; heat because of cold. Parent because of child. We hear sounds because of the silences between them. We know ourselves only if we also take in what we label “not-self.”
And if we hold on to only one of these “sides” when the reality is always all sides, always the whole, we hurt. We go from physical pain to emotional suffering. We try to simplify what is too complex to circumscribe. Yet, when our mind and heart quiets, we can mindfully notice and let go of this. We can notice when we mistake our beliefs as ultimate truth. We can notice when we think of ourselves, in this moment, as somehow a permanent, transcendental reality. We can notice how our very idea of self distorts our thinking.
And because of this impermanence and inseparability, we must be a bit humble. James Baldwin once said that: “One must say Yes to life and embrace it whenever it is found — and it is found in terrible places; nevertheless, there it is…. For nothing is fixed; forever and forever and forever it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have.
The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us, and the light goes out.”
When we can let go of trying to be an impossible idea, of a permanent, isolated self⎼ and relax into just being our world, just being here with everything⎼ what a relief it is. What a joy it is.
**This blog was written two weeks ago, before the invasion of Israel by Hamas, and then updated. I realize that any thoughts of peace, let alone joy, might be so difficult now. My own thoughts crumble before me as I look at them; and fear, anger, sadness, and grief linger behind. But I hope to find some clarity so I can see how to respond in a way that might be helpful.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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