In practicing non-judgment regarding a painful exchange with a beloved recently, (and I do mean practicing as in working on
it, not there yet, trying real hard, and not “My Perfect Non-Judgment Practice
is going very well, thank you”) I found myself instead responding internally with a great deal of pain, confusion, and anger. I had some visual aids, or rather some
semi-conscious pictures I was using as a way to change my usual way of dealing with situations such as these.
At first, thinking about the situation, standing
near the dresser in the bedroom, I found my anger feeding into judgment, or perhaps it was
the other way around. Surely, it was the other way around. I felt the equivalent of disembodied fingers
wrapping deliberately into a fist, and worse, wrapping around something alive in
order to squeeze it down to nothing. I saw the defining words my mind was choosing, their sharp-edged letters hanging in the air in front of me,
and then the black shapes also stretching out into dark ink fingers and wrapping around the
object of my scorn, my pain, my hopelessness.
The extending letters were made of iron, stapling down the judged to the
walls of my thinking, letting no movement happen, no cry for help escape. The judged was a prisoner in black bonds, and
I felt a terrible delight in holding it there that way; my needs
open-mouthed, believing they were about to be satisfied, because I would be
powerful, I would be important, I would be the one who decided how this thing
went, if . . . I just . . . squeezed . . . a little harder.
But here I found that the fist wasn't as strong as I wished it were, it's grip never quite tight enough to satisfy my anger. The iron alphabet promised more satisfaction if I added yet more desperate, definite language
to this imprisoning game. I noted that my heart was
still breaking anyway, power hadn't taken away my pain, controlling the labels didn't stop my unmet needs from pleading from somewhere behind that prison wall.
Unlike Grandpa Adam, who named the first creatures and watched as they took the forms of his words, my words
only lied about form. My words only
attempted to squeeze and strap down what appeared to be a cloud of mist, a spray of stars. My words kept pretending
they’d captured it, contained it, named it and finished the process for me. I looked at the sharp black-staple letters hanging in
the air before me that said things like “irresponsible’ “dysfunctional” “mean”
“cruel” and I believed in the shape they had taken, hung my hope
on those inky spikes, decided I could trust the strength of them, strapped my boots on tight with those
staples and thought 'I can make my journey from here', counting on it being The
Truth.
But I did not know that from this angle
that I was the only one who thought so.
Truth, from the other side of this scene, defied my attempts at shaping
it. Again I noticed my heart was still
hurting. I tried walking on this judgment-heavy foundation
and found that my steps were still faltering.
And I knew
I was judging. And I wanted so much to just
please stop. But it's not so easy when the grip I’ve held by my
hand and in my head is practiced through lifetimes of learning, generation by generation. The practice of Solving-by-Defining, Controlling-by-Judging, is nearly automatic. Judgment is what happens first, for me, for us all, having been told a million
times by a million hapless teachers that it is The Thing To Do. It is what we know, having experienced it being done to us just as often. But I want not to be imprisoned any more. I want not to be the imprisoner any
more, either. I want no more to be caught by words of final decision like that. I want a whole new world without those familiar hard, rigid, unwilling-to-change descriptors, heaped upon me and everyone.
So I step back away from the burning fist, duck underneath the twisting, grabby letters hovering before me in
the air. I pluck the threads that
connect them to me out of my thinking and start from a beginning I do not fully understand. I go to a location I have
rarely been before. I take a deep
breath, I call upon my heart, and wordlessly, hopefully want for it to make
this situation holy. I decide to see something different, here and now. And from the center
of my self I watch in wonder, as a breath, a deep slow breath, moves forward
toward the judging words, and silently, lovingly, carefully, without any effort
at all, begins to loosen the letters, to undo the grip.
It is as if stars begin to
bloom in front of me, out from the iron constriction. The
letters themselves begin to dissolve but not disappear, for they too become
even more stars, the increase widening quietly, slowly - a flower of stars with it's soft center made of open space, a cervix of stars with a birth-way forming as it continues to dilate, to expand. I breathe deeply again, and
this time I open, I widen my chest in imitation of the opening, dissipating judgment. This time I spread my hands at my heart level, moving them in a graceful expanding circle. All of
me, my body, my mind, my heart, moves with the cloud of
sparking mist. I am listening to the tiny bells in it, the near-silent crackling of
infinitesimal lightning it it, as it expands into a whole spinning galaxy there
in the room with me, still standing in front of the dresser, my feet on the
carpet, my eyes closed, my breath continuing.
A galaxy
there, shaped by my dancing hands, spinning and opening like the energy from my
heart, the dark words having transformed into beautiful glinting stars, shows me from it's center of this widening world another kind of what is True,
and this time, it is pure possibility.
I recall the exchange with my loved one again now, and hang it here in this blossoming light. Deliberately, I put no words out to define or
describe it, but instead I watch and see
that there are myriad possibilities of meaning it could contain, none of which I grab hold of,
keeping my hands open, my heart open, my mind free. Instead, I just watch, in wonder at all that
it could be. And in this
state I find that my pain is still there, but it, too, now is opened, expanding like
all the rest here, and exposed to the healing balm that seems to be here. My pain is no longer strapped and
stapled to the object of my previous judgment, but rather is a resident of my own
heart, there long before any surprising communication touched it and brought it to my
attention. My pain is also made of
stars, and it spins softly, slowly into the blended galaxy of light here in this
room with me.
Because it
comes from within me, because this pain is mine-all-mine, and because I am expanding from my
heart in this moment, love begins to cover it like a delicate frost, to trickle over it like a
warm water wash. I realize that it can be in the care of no one but me and I want to tend it like a mother to her own child. I do not offer it the black letters of descriptive words
to define or detain it, either, but rather I breathe again, widen my fingers softly even more
to caress it’s edges with care, and watch, watch, wordlessly and maybe somewhat more
wise in this moment.
And here, at last, is the mind’s area
of expertise. Once the heart has allowed
expansion, acceptance, all-possibility and love to illumine it, the need comes
forward, a delicate beautiful universe of its own, a flowering of pure
potential as well. And here, here, the
mind can then define, guided by heart, and lovingly label this need just
enough to bring it down to manageable size, to also then be able to think up
reasonable, rational, realistic and action-oriented solutions to
feeding the hunger at the empty center of it, to water the dry soil of it, to
soothe the pain of it. And once it is met and cared for, I can kiss it as it finally
goes to sleep, contented and satisfied.
This is where the expertise and skill of
the mind can be of utmost value.
But in this, my love, and not before.
Not before the heart has opened and revealed the Universe of all Possibility.
For a moment, I came to Non-Judgment, and I practiced over and over and over again every time the compelling, competing, controlling definitions came up again, and they did. Oh yes, they did.
Perhaps the most beautiful thing of all in this was that my true needs also opened up to my view, no longer squeezed themselves by the iron grip. In discovering them, alive and awake and attended to, I realized the answers to taking care of myself in this particular dilemma. For that is always, always what the heart, and the mind as well, are trying to do, each in their own way, even in judgment, even in lack. They are trying in their unpracticed, often unsuccessful ways to meet the innocent needs underneath.
Here's to infinite opportunities to practice Non-Judgment. We will be granted this gift today. Perhaps in the next 5 minutes. Perhaps right now. Good luck, my friends. Good intentions. And so good for you.
