From Suffering to Peace

by Mark Coleman

  Also pay attention to your body. Whether the comparison makes you feel inferior or superior (or equal), notice your physical and emotional reaction. For instance, feelings of superiority are usually less pleasant than we may imagine, since they create a sense of separation, or smugness, rather than expansiveness or real joy. Can you sense the inherent instability and uncertainty of that inflated position and the anxiety and contraction that can accompany that status? When you are feeling inferior, notice how painful that state can be.

  Bring attention to the vulnerability that underlies so much of the comparing mind. Notice how the comparing habit often arises out of a sense of lack or an insecurity. Can you meet that vulnerability with a compassionate presence rather than judgment?

  By observing this roller coaster of comparing, we strengthen our ability to disengage from it. We learn to simply recognize and observe this process with a kind attention, rather than ride the highs and lows of the comparisons themselves. This is like stepping off the roller coaster. Abiding in this knowing presence allows us to feel a sense of space or equanimity even as the tendency to compare continues. Over time, you will find the comparing mind no longer leaves its painful residue. You will see comparisons arise and not take them so seriously, releasing without trouble the self-constructed realities that once caused you so much anguish.

  • • •

  Chapter 12

  Identifying the Judging Mind

  The more a man judges, the less he loves.

  — HONORÉ DE BALZAC

  Self-judgment is a modern epidemic. How often do we swim in self-critical thoughts about others and ourselves? In my previous book, Make Peace with Your Mind, I chronicle how frequent and painful the inner critic can be. In this chapter I want to highlight both the ways we judge others and the ways we turn that harsh lens toward ourselves in negative and unhelpful ways, which all too often leave painful scars.

  We live in a judgmental culture and in an era of endless social comparison. As I’ve discussed, social media fuels our habit to judge and compare ourselves by externalized standards. Who doesn’t find themselves comparing their life to the heavily curated but “perfect” lives posted on Instagram or Facebook? Such comparisons leave many teenagers and adults in constant angst.

  With our brain’s hard wiring to a negativity bias, our tendency can be to see all that is wrong with the world, people, and ourselves. This bias selectively looks for what is deficient, problematic, or needs fixing. Yet when we live imprisoned inside that critical mind, our world becomes smaller, negative, and mean. We tend to reject people for not living up to some idealized standard. Such judgment pushes people away, and we can find ourselves isolated and alone in our tower of superiority.

  Not surprisingly, we also focus that critical lens on ourselves. That provides lethal ammunition for the inner critic, which can be ruthless in its self-assessment. We can then all too easily fault ourselves for not being good enough or smart enough or for any of the number of ways that we simply don’t measure up. Such judgments leave us feeling ashamed, insufficient, and deficient or unworthy. This cycle creates a lot of unnecessary suffering.

  Yet this pattern is so ubiquitous we don’t even notice it. It has become part of our mental furniture. One of my meditation teachers, Joseph Goldstein, talks about being on a long silent meditation retreat and sitting in the dining room looking around. He noticed his mind rampantly judging almost everyone in the room. Judgments arose about the way people walked (too slow or too fast), and about the quantity of food they took (too much or too little). Then he noticed judgments about people who did not seem mindful enough! As he became aware of what he was doing, he was both surprised and amused. He could see the humor of judging others for not being mindful when he himself was not mindful of his own judging mind! Sometimes the best strategy is to laugh at ourselves and the hubris of our own mind.

  Mindfulness can help free us from the painful burden of this powerful mental habit. By bringing the clarity of awareness to the content of our mind, we can track the nature of our thoughts and assess whether they are helpful or harmful, to see if they point to the truth or not. With discernment we can assess whether judging others brings happiness and connection or if such critical thoughts make us feel artificially superior yet disdainful or even misanthropic. Judgments can create a sense of “otherness” that separates and excludes, leaving us alone and far from a sense of well-being.

  The poison of the judging mind also erodes our sense of worth and value. If we listen to a voice that only points out our own faults, mistakes, and shortcomings, we will inevitably feel bad or even worthless. Unless we consciously attune to judgments, they can be invisible, slipping under our radar and eluding detection. They become as familiar as wallpaper, so that it feels normal for negativity and self-doubt to decorate our mental space. No wonder that, at times, we feel bad about ourselves.

  But we can wake up to the impact of our critical thoughts. With awareness we can notice how such views sap our energy and make us fatigued. Sometimes our brain gets foggy when weighed down by the barrage of self-judgment. At other times we may feel hopeless or unconfident. Tracking the physical, emotional, and energetic impacts of judgment can help alert us to the inner critic’s presence.

  The good news is that we don’t have to take judgmental thoughts personally or even believe them. Many arise unbidden, part of the same habits and tendencies that drive the comparing mind. Our work is also the same: to recognize judgments and meet the pain of the pattern with compassionate attention. With lucidity, we identify painful thoughts, recognize their inaccuracies, and let them go.

  In one 2008 study, researchers investigated the impact of mindfulness on negative thoughts and whether the practice improved the ability to let go of negative thinking. They discovered that when people participated in a mindfulness meditation—based clinical intervention, they were able to let go of negative automatic thinking more frequently and more easily.

  I have also seen this verified in my own experience innumerable times. As a teacher, I never cease to be amazed by what happens when people shine the light of attention on the inner critic. It is a delight to see just how much space and peace emerges from bringing mindfulness to the judgmental mind. And it provides a sense of empowerment to know that no matter what the current state of our mind and heart, transformation is possible through the simple yet powerful force of awareness. The following practice provides both some theoretical perspectives for working with the inner critic as well as some practical tools for constructively mitigating its impact.

  • PRACTICE •

  Recognizing the Judging Mind

  There are many ways to work with the critical mind. Like the practice “Noticing the Comparing Mind” in chapter 11, the main goal here is simply to observe your mind and to recognize and label judging thoughts as they arise. This can be done anywhere; just sit or walk comfortably in a place where you can safely turn your attention inward.

  Our minds are often full of evaluations, observations, and discerning thoughts that are necessary in life. In our work, we need a critical capacity to function effectively, make decisions, strategize, and so on. In this contemplation, however, the intention is to focus on identifying negative judgments, or those often harsh, critical assessments of someone’s worth or goodness, whether that person is yourself or someone else. For example, become aware of thoughts that you or others are “not good enough,” or that you could or should have done something better.

  Once you detect a judgment, label it with a phrase like “judging.” This improves your internal radar for critical thoughts. Then notice what impact the judgment has. Does it belittle someone else, or does it make you feel bad, stupid, or any number of painful emotions? In this way, awareness can help you sense the corrosive impact of judging, which in turn can help you disengage from it.

  In contrast, for fun, consider counting the number of judgments that arise in a day. This can be an enlightening exercise. When you get to 232
judgments by lunchtime, you will see how ludicrous the judging mind can be.

  Beyond labeling and counting, also inquire if a particular judgment is true or not. Universal statements, which include words like always and never, are usually whisperings of the judging mind. Any thought that includes could have, should have, would have reflects the perverted reasoning of the inner critic. Such generalized statements are rarely accurate.

  When judgments about the past arise, you can challenge the judging mind’s view. Hindsight is 20/20, and what is done is done. Let go of criticisms of past actions based on the unfair vantage point of hindsight. In a similar fashion, question the inner critic’s assumptions. Is it true that you are bad, stupid, or unlovable? Is that true about someone else?

  We tend to bestow our judging mind with unquestioned power and authority, but this risks an inaccurate self-perception. Instead, listen and question, without believing every word. Take back your right to evaluate the credibility of judgments and your own self-worth. By clarifying your relationship to the judging mind, you can reclaim your power to establish a more accurate self-perception and stable sense of well-being.

  One helpful strategy with the inner critic is humor. If you can see the absurdity of judgments, you can disentangle from their hooks. Ultimately, the goal isn’t to argue with the inner critic but to have a disinterested relationship with it. Being able to laugh at the craziness of what it says creates space and distance in the same way that comedians poke fun at the absurdity of human behaviors and make us laugh at our own antics. Isn’t it amusing that the inner critic is never satisfied no matter what we do? Seeing the funny, nonsensical side of this dynamic can help take the sting out of the inner critic’s words, so that we simply roll our eyes at its jabs.

  Lastly, you may notice that the inner critic becomes vocal when you feel vulnerable or threatened socially. Our judging mind jumps to help, but not in positive or constructive ways. Notice when judgments arise to defend against the criticisms of others, such as following a performance review at work. Acknowledge that the inner critic’s intention is to help us avoid rejection or abandonment, while also recognizing that its punishing and shaming are not effective ways to do that. Instead, when you feel vulnerable, see if you can treat yourself with kindness and care and avoid blaming others. That is a far more effective way to help ourselves when we are struggling, rather than adding fuel to the fire with painful self-criticism and judgments.

  As you cultivate seeing and releasing judgment, notice any space or ease that arises, and if it leads to more lightness and joy. When you are less burdened by the inner critic, how does that shift how you view yourself and others? Does it allow you to see yourself and everyone else in a more accurate light? If so, notice this positive impact.

  • • •

  Chapter 13

  The Illusion of Time

  We cast away priceless time in dreams, born of imagination, fed upon illusion, and put to death by reality.

  — JUDY GARLAND

  One of the strongest habits of the mind is its ceaseless foray into the imaginary world of the future. How much time do we spend ruminating, worrying, and imagining a catastrophe about a future scenario that never actually happens? We can spend hours lost in daydreams and fantasies about plans that never actualize. How many moments do we spend rehearsing a discussion with a loved one or our boss? Then when that conversation happens, it always unfolds differently than the way we had carefully planned.

  How often do you wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat worrying about some potential disaster, such as the stock market crashing or a family member getting hurt? The mind frequently creates stories about the future that catapult us into a fight-or-flight response, sending adrenaline coursing through our veins as we anticipate a catastrophe. Such mental machinations are wearisome. The poet Hafiz framed it well: “Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I’d like to see you living in better conditions.”

  The irony is that this dizzying speculation is about a future reality that doesn’t exist! Mystics have expounded on the illusion of time for centuries and pointed to its mirage-like nature. Yet humans have carved up time into the concept of past, present, and future, which we take to be very real. But do such classifications really exist outside of our clocks and calendars?

  From a phenomenological perspective, the present is the only moment that we know directly, so do past and future exist anywhere but in our heads? Is time just a mental construct? The concept of time is a helpful convention that allows us to prepare for what is to come and review what has occurred. What has happened in the past is not fictitious, and yet it now only exists in our imagination or in history books. Certainly, only humans divide time into seconds, minutes, days, and years. Such divisions often reflect the cycles of nature — each day matches the earth’s rotation and each year its orbit of the sun — yet beyond these clocks and concepts, the actual experience of time can still seem mirage-like.

  Nevertheless, the brain is hardwired to anticipate future events as a means of survival. Remembering what has occurred and anticipating what might occur can be an extremely useful skill. We have thrived as a species for millennia partly due to this ability. We can prepare for the hard winters ahead; we can anticipate droughts and plan for food shortages. This beats scavenging what is available in the frozen ground of winter. The brain is amazingly adept at preparing for the inevitable uncertainties of life.

  Take, for example, climate change. Our ability to imagine and anticipate — to create models of future sea level changes and rising temperatures for this century — allow us to see the urgency of this impending crisis and to recognize that radical, scalable solutions are needed now for the survival of all species. Understanding the changes and impacts that are possible can help us create solutions to this potential catastrophe. But there is a difference between anticipating future needs — such as by saving for retirement — and predicting the future. We can never actually know what will happen. We need to remember that whatever future scenarios we imagine are at best predictions, a reasonable calculation of possibilities, a set of potential scenarios.

  This is one reason this ability is also a source of stress. While anticipating disaster can help us prepare for calamity, we can also fret about all sorts of future scenarios that will never come to pass. Further, anxiety and worry are not in themselves helpful: they can actually thwart constructive action. Such feelings can steal us away from the riches of the present moment. Too often, we can get so stirred up with fear and angst about what we anticipate — whether we are imagining something realistic and unavoidable, like our own mortality, or something fantastical and unlikely to ever happen, like a meteor strike — that we fail to pay attention to what is before us.

  If our concepts of the future are clearly constructs in our mind, so too is the past. We sometimes treat the shrine of memory as infallible and wholly accurate, as if memory were nothing but a raw data bank of facts. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our past is also “made up,” a particular story we create by choosing and putting together only certain aspects of events and slices of memories.

  We do this in the same way we make movies. During a film’s production, hundreds of hours of footage are shot, and this is edited and manipulated into a two-hour narrative that evokes, say, the sinking of the Titanic. When it comes to our lives, our brain also picks and selects, edits and manipulates, in order to create a narrative of our personal history. We don’t remember everything that happened, and what we recollect can be easily distorted by a few salient events. These can cast a light across all of our memories that slants our perspective into a particular story.

  For instance, I have a few poignant memories of being psychologically bullied by close friends in high school, and this created a painful impression that cast a shadow over my teenage years. Afterward, and for some time, I looked upon that time with the view that I was living in a harsh, dog-eat-dog world. Moments of being bullied were rare, but they were sig
nificant enough that they dominated my mind, which replayed them often and constructed a painful narrative of adolescence. Today I can look back and see that this story, though it felt true then, was incomplete and inaccurate. Sometimes, it takes hearing another perspective — such as from a therapist or from someone else who was involved — to see an alternative vantage point, which can radically change our past narratives.

  Much research has been done on the distortion of memory within the world of criminal investigation. An illuminating radio series on National Public Radio called Serial explored the world of a young man, Adnan Syed, who had been accused of murdering his girlfriend. He and his closest friends were asked to recollect all of their movements on a particular Monday afternoon, eleven weeks before, during an interview by police detectives. The radio host posed the question to listeners about whether they could remember exactly what they had been doing on the afternoon of a specific day three months ago. How accurate would your memory and recollection be?

  We now know that identifications in “perpetrator lineups” can be horribly inaccurate. Innocent people have been sentenced to decades of prison time because of the faulty or biased memories of eyewitnesses to a crime. We assume that people recall accurately, but they often don’t, and eyewitness statements are now considered insufficient to uphold a conviction.

  The stories we tell ourselves about the past can be sources of great pain or delight. From the perspective of mindfulness, we learn to hold all of our thoughts, ideas, and perceptions lightly. Thoughts, as the Zen saying goes, are like fingers pointing to the moon, but they are not the moon. Yet how easily we mistake our thoughts for reality. In meditation I instruct students to see that the thought of their foot is not their foot; it is just an idea, a mental representation. A thought about the future or the past in the same way is not actually real. It is only a fleeting mental image or memory. The extent that we mistake them for reality determines to some degree how much power they will have to affect us.