The Difference between Critical Thinking and Judging

      I don’t enjoy cooking every day.  On the other hand, my sister, a chef, loves cooking.  She doesn’t mind coming home from a long day at work, and then to begin cooking many dishes, and even making time-consuming Indian flatbreads (roti). I laugh because even though she’s working outside the home, and I’m home all day, she will sometimes send food home with me. 

     So when I look at her industriousness in the kitchen, and I think how easily I could eat cereal for supper, I judge myself – why can’t I be different, more hard working and less lazy.  But is this helpful?

     Such thinking arises out of our ingrained, unconscious judging habit that is operating constantly.  Things are either good/bad, right/wrong, black/white, sinful/holy.  We rarely see the world and our lives clearly and without bias.  Everything is processed through the colored lens of our desires, aversions, or indifference.   Our experiences aren’t immune to such judgments -- everything we experience, do, think is being rated by us --- all the time!  And typically our conclusions are that we or others are lacking or deficient in some way. 

     So how does critical thinking differ from judging? 

     Critical thinking is the ability to see clearly what’s happening.  For example: critical thinking can be observing one car is faster than another, or that one person is more outgoing than another person.  It is a necessary and important skill for good decision making and success.

     Judging is observing, comparing, and then degrading one of the things as lesser than or lacking in some way.  So in the car example, it’s noting that one car is slower and then condemning the slower car as weaker, not well made, or flawed. So with judging there’s always negativity attached to the observation.

     The Buddha talked of laying judgment on top of pain as the two arrows.  In my case of not enjoying cooking:  the first arrow is noticing that I don’t enjoy cooking, and this is painful to me because it’s a daily task.  The second arrow is the shaming or mental anguish layered onto that original pain.  So we increase our suffering through insults added to the original injury.

     When we judge, we become myopic.  Judgments skew our ability to see the bigger picture or to healthily relate to something we’ve deemed inadequate, a failure, unfair, or wrong.   Basically we write a situation or person off as no longer being of value. Our tendency is to walk away.  We stop looking and then fail to see that every situation and person has a lesson to teach us. 

     So if we want to learn what we are here to learn, and to live our lives to their fullest potential, we need to be willing to face life’s challenges head on.  This requires that we train ourselves to remain open to difficult situations and people even when we would like to walk away.  At the core of this recognition is the understanding that joy isn’t separate from the messiness of our lives.    

     We can learn to stay with our initial pain or challenge without adding mental suffering to it by:

·         Staying present – notice when your mind wanders into the future or past; see what kind of thoughts you are having, and then come back to the present moment.

·         Getting interested in your perceptions – be curious about how your mind makes up stories and judgments about people and circumstances.

·         Staying with and exploring whatever arises in you – sit with feelings of fear, sadness, pain, anger, hate or even love, joy and tenderness.

·         Growing grateful – notice what’s going right in your life.

·         Helping others – extend a hand to someone in pain or suffering.

·         Knowing that challenges stretch us – recognize we are strong and resilient.

·         Forgiving – be gentle and compassionate with ourselves and others for judging.

·         Choosing to respond – engage life more healthily from a broader open perspective.

     And if all of this is difficult to do (which it may well be), then notice the pain that arises from struggling to become less judgmental and more mindful.  Then with kindness and humour, keep plugging away at it.

     By praciticing these steps a little bit every day, we can begin to change life-long habits of judging and harming ourselves and others.  

    May you meet your next challenge as a friend.