We hear that Taoist story from China and we say, that's right. You never know if something is good or bad, despite the initial appearance. That's true. Yet how often do we live with that observation, that truth? How often do we refrain from judging something or someone as good or bad? How often do we refrain from adding a layer of morality to our judgments? How often do we refrain from acting upon our judgments?
A judgment, according to the Merriam Webster dictionary, is the formal utterance of an authoritative opinion; the process of forming an opinion or evaluation by discerning and comparing. Judgment usually implies a weighing of evidence and a testing of premises. A judgment is an opinion about reality, about what is. When we add morality to our judgments, we form an opinion about what ought to be. What kinds of behavior, speech, character traits, intentions, motives, etc are good and right; what kinds bad and wrong. There are two kinds of judgments, then. The ones that look to reality, to what is, as best we can perceive it, and the moral ones that look to what should be, what ought to be, as measured against our standards of good and evil. We have to make judgments about reality all the time, just to get along. I'm driving down Broadway and I can see the light at Henry Street turning yellow. I make a judgment either to speed up and go through it or slow down and wait for the next green. How do I make that judgment? Through discernment and comparison. I pay attention to other cars on the road, to the speed limit, to how far I am from the intersection, to how late I am, and so forth. (Did you ever see that movie Starman or something, in which the actor is an alien come back to earth in the guise of a woman's dead husband? She teaches him to drive and they approach an intersection with the light turning yellow and he slams his foot on the accelerator. She screams for him to slow down and stop and he becomes puzzled and points out that's what she does at yellow lights. Anyway . . . ) On a regular basis we make judgments about how we will respond to the reality before us.
And moral judgments? I think we make them all the time too. In this country, and at times among Unitarian Universalists, we judge a person morally by his/her political beliefs; by his/her personal habits, such as smoking, drinking, eating meat or not eating meat; by his/her religious beliefs; by his/her lifestyle. One of the major reasons that we experience life in the United States as so very polarized is that we make so many moral judgments about each other. One definition of prejudice explains it as taking real differences and adding value judgments onto them and then treating those who differ as less than, as less worthy. Those with different skin color, those with different sexual orientation, you get it. I would suggest that it is also prejudice to judge someone morally inferior, or stupid, or prejudiced when they differ from us politically or religiously. We in this society are full of prejudice, both on the left and right sides of the spectrum, in part because we are overfull of moral judgment. Republicans,“ Democrats/ Evangelical Christians,“ Liberal Christians, you get it. We can't even talk to each other with civility. I do not think this is our democracy at its finest hour. As this operates on a societal level, it also operates on a personal level. We've all probably experienced the pain of being judged unfairly and inaccurately. We've probably all attributed intentions and motivations to people without really knowing what they were thinking. Judgments, despite the dictionary definitions, are not solely rational decisions. Moral judgments do not come about through a simple, or even a complex, discernment and comparison process. Judgments have a strong emotional component, which is why moral judgment can seem at times so rigid and unforgiving, so blind and deaf. A Princeton University study, which draws upon research in psychology and cognitive neuroscience,,"suggests that moral judgment is more a matter of emotion and affective intuition than deliberate reasoning. (Greene J, Haidt J. _http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12475712_ (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12475712) ) This is especially so in situations of personal involvement. "Emotions are an anchor for our moral systems, says Frans de Waal at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, (22 March 2007, NewScientist.com, Roxanne Khamsi ) Two emotions play a particular role in moral judgments: fear and empathy.
Empathy, the ability to perceive and feel the emotions of another, connects us to each other. Fear separates us. When we perceive differences between ourselves and other people, and we fear them, we might be more apt to judge other people harshly, from a moral standpoint. If we can empathize with the differences, we are more apt to judge other people morally favorable. My purpose today is to raise questions about moral judgment making; to look deeply at our propensity for doing so and to ask what are the consequences of ignoring the emotional side of moral judgment? I want to question if the extent to which we make judgments and act on them furthers peace, understanding and justice in our country and in our personal relations? Further, I want to explore what would be if we did not attach so much moral value to differences. I want to challenge our own claims to truth. Finally, I want to wonder how we can hold onto our passionately held convictions if we let go of some of the moral judgment making associated with them. (How much time do you have?) We base our moral judgments on what we think ought to be. Our judgments have far reaching consequences because whenever we make a judgment based upon what ought to be, it begins to color our perception of reality, as this Sufi story illustrates.,"Mulla Nasrudin was walking past a well, when he had the impulse to look into it. It was night, and as he peered into the deep water, he saw the Moon's reflection there."I must save the Moon!' the Mulla thought." Otherwise she will never wane and the fasting month of Ramadan will never come to an end.' He found a rope, threw it in and called down:"Hold tight; keep bright; succor is at hand!' The rope caught in a rock inside the well, and Nasrudin heaved as hard as he could. Standing back, he suddenly felt the rope give as it came loose, and he was thrown on his back. As he lay there, panting, he saw the Moon riding in the sky above."Glad to be of service,' said Nasrudin."Just as well I came along, wasn't it?" (The Pleasantries of the Incredible, collected stories by Idries Shah) See what he's done? Nasrudin starts with his perception that the moon is down in the well when it ought to be up in the sky. Nasrudin decides he ought to take action so that he can assist the moon with its cycles and make sure the Muslim holy days of Ramadan can proceed as they ought to. So he attempts to haul the moon out of the well and falls over. Lying on his back on the ground he sees the moon in the sky. Mission accomplished, he decides. The world is as it ought to be. Our judgments about what is going on and what ought to go on directly affect how we perceive reality. This, then, affects our actions.
"Once a samurai came before Zen Master Hakuin."You're supposed to be a great Zen Master,' he said."So I want you to tell me the truth about heaven and hell. Do they really exist?' Without a moment's hesitation Hakuin responded,"What, even such an ugly and untalented man as you can become a samurai? Amazing!' Immediately the proud samurai became angry and drew his sword."I' ll kill you!' he roared. Fearlessly Hakuin said,"This is hell.' The samurai paused and grew thoughtful. His face softened from its angry scowl. Sheathing his sword he put his hands together palm to palm and bowed before Hakuin." And this,' said Hakuin just as calmly,"is heaven." (In One Hand Clapping, Zen stories compiled by Rafe Martin) The samurai wanted truth from Hakuin. Hakuin seemingly responded with a judgment about his fitness to be a samurai. The samurai became angry, made a judgment of his own about the worthiness of Hakuin and took action to kill him. Was Hakuin making a moral judgment about the samurai? No, even though the samurai thought he was. He was teaching the samurai that when we are so caught up in our own ego, our own pride in our identity, or our own insecurity about our identity, then our well being becomes dependent upon the actions and words of others. This is hell. If our own interior sense of worthiness fluctuates according to what other people say and do, and with it comes a need to punish people when they put us down, this is hell. When the samurai realized that, he understood there was no judgment and his actions changed. He bowed in gratitude before the teacher. Our judgments about what is going on and what ought to go on directly affect how we perceive reality. This affects our actions and so it goes on and on.
I think we pass judgment upon one another, in a moral sense, far more often than we need to. We don't examine the basis for our judgments; we don't recognize the fear or empathy underneath some of them. This estranges us from one another. It hinders us from seeing one another. It blocks communication and understanding. It makes it easier for us to objectify one another and demonize whole groups of people and leads us to forget about the inherent worth and dignity of each person; the responsible and free search for truth and meaning; compassion in human relations; the interconnections that hold us. Is this how we want to live? Is this who we want to be? What might be a different way? We base our judgments upon our perceptions of reality. Are those perceptions infallible? No, they are not. Is the moon in the well? Can we always trust our perceptions to be accurate indicators of other people's reality? No, we cannot. Did Hakuin insult the samurai? So what then? Before we take our perceptions as truth we can ask ourselves Are you sure? Before we make a judgment we can ask, Are we sure that we are correct? Before we assume . . . You know that old story of a man seeing another man on a galloping horse running through the town? As the rider passes, the man calls out,,"Where are you going in such a hurry? ,"I don't know, replies the rider.,"Ask the horse. Sometimes our perceptions are the horse taking us for a wild ride. We all do it. I used to live in Greece and once I wanted to fly to the island of Rhodes. Got to the airport, only to learn the flight was cancelled. Never a good experience. Imagine it in another language. So I'm trying to book myself on a plane for the next day, tomorrow. I'm speaking Greek and the airline person keeps arguing with me, insisting that what I wanted was impossible. I'm getting angrier and angrier. My perception was that the ticket agent would not help me. I'm getting angrier and angrier. I hate the Greeks. I hate Greece. Everything is so much harder here. Why aren't they as efficient as Americans? The judgments were flying, even if I was not. You know what? Instead of requesting a flight for,"tomorrow I was using the word for," yesterday. I was asking her to book me on a flight for yesterday. Ooops. My mistake. It might have been helpful if I had asked myself Are you sure before I condemned the entire population of Greece as lazy, unhelpful American-haters. Okay, we've let our perceptions carry us away. We've made a judgment and are acting upon it before we checked out its accuracy. We all do that too. What then? We can ask ourselves What am I doing? When we find ourselves in the Athens airport, becoming more and more obviously impatient and frustrated, based on a perception that we do not know is incorrect, we can still have some awareness and ask ourselves what are we doing? Do we really want to be behaving like this? Do we really want to treat another person this way? Is it going to get us what we want? Or is it just to punish the other with our displeasure?
Is this an outlet for our own habit energy? All of us have habitual ways in which we act and react. What annoys one of us does not annoy another. One of us cries, one of us yells, one of us pouts as our way of showing hurt. This does not mean we are incapable of reacting in other ways; habit energy means we have default ways that come up before we even know we have a choice. That 's habit energy. If we catch ourselves running away with a perception and ask Are you sure before we get too far down the road, we break the default of habit energy. If we have made a judgment and are acting on it and we catch ourselves doing that and ask What are we doing, we break the default of habit energy. We will question the need for our judgment and see the choices we have. And when we see the choices, we might act differently, like the samurai who ultimately grew in wisdom instead of taking a life.
Asking ourselves are you sure; what am I doing; is this habit energy is a practice we can cultivate. It requires that we maintain some awareness of ourselves, some mindfulness. Of course it's better to begin when we aren't stressed or unhappy about something. Better to begin when we're calm and feeling good. We can, though, learn to hold the questions in our hearts and minds and even surprise ourselves with the asking of them. At least this has been my experience.
Three intentions anchor the practice of are you sure; what am I doing; is this habit energy. Each one aims to keep the mind open and not jump to moral judgments. They are the intention not to be caught or bound by any ideology: political, religious or otherwise. I want to think for myself and if I look only through a strict party line, my sight becomes more restricted and I become more intolerant. I remember once I was hanging around with two professors and a student and they asked about Unitarian Universalism. I took out my wallet card and the student read it aloud, until she got to the words about us thinking that there was a unity in life that connected us. She turned to the professor and said something to the effect that we post-modernists don't believe in unity, do we? But what do you think, I wanted to ask her. If your only pitch is a curve ball you won't win many baseball games.
The second intention is that I don't want to be so attached to my own views that I pre-judge the insights of others. I want to remain open to the insights and experiences of others. The knowledge I possess is not changeless, absolute truth. Truth is found in life and I want to remain open to learning from life at every moment.
My third intention is not to force others to accept my views. If I let go of thinking that my truth is the complete and only truth, I can realize that other people can and will have different views. Other people do have the right to choose what to believe and how to decide. Does this mean anything goes? No. If I encounter what looks like fanaticism I will find a way to call it. Does this mean I can't influence anyone? No. My way of being in the world will influence people far more than if I insist they think as I do, as every parent knows. Does this mean that my passion about what I believe is wrong? No. I can and will continue to work and to stand for and passionately believe in what I think is justice. But I will also keep my mind open to the possibility that, as with the farmer whose horse ran away, I cannot have absolute certainty about what is good and what is bad. I want peace. Peace in the world; peace in myself; peace between people. I want understanding, fairness, respect, integrity. Therefore, when I make a judgment of a moral nature, I want to portray people in a manner consistent enough with how they understand themselves. When my judgments do not do that, I want to question them. Am I sure? What am I doing? Is this habit energy? I don't want to be an ideological slave; I don't want to be closed to learning from experience, thinking I already have the answers. If I want the right to choose what to believe and how to decide, then others must have it also. The rush to judgment in our country and between individuals does not serve us well. There are other ways to maintain our ethics and co-exist productively and richly with those who differ, setting limits when necessary, but without condemnation. The choices belong to us. May we choose wisely.