Wise Mind is a stable balance between Emotional Mind and Rational Mind. Emotional aggression comes solely from Emotional Mind. Emotional aggression is emotion run rampant. Emotional avoidance, on the other hand, comes solely from Rational Mind. It is devoid of emotion. Rational Mind can be cold and unfeeling, and in response to emotional aggression, Rational Mind results in an emotional cutoff.
Compassion comes from Wise Mind. It is the ability to temper Emotional Mind with reason, and to inform Rational Mind with emotion. Compassion is the ability to be non-judgmental with others. It is also the ability to be non-judgmental with yourself. The ultimate in compassion is to be able to be non-judgmental even with people we may not like very much.
Wise Mind: Practicing Compassion
There is a Burmese prayer on being non-judgmental. This prayer is recited three times. The first time it is recited, it goes:
May I be free of danger.
May I have mental happiness.
May I have physical happiness.
May I have ease of well-being.
The second time it is recited, it is recited for a friend or loved one in the following manner:
May you be free of danger.
May you have mental happiness.
May you have physical happiness.
May you have ease of well-being.
The third time it is recited, it is recited for an enemy or for a person who has done you an injustice, again in the following manner:
May you be free of danger.
May you have mental happiness.
May you have physical happiness.
May you have ease of well-being.
By practicing compassion in this manner, even for those who may have treated us badly, we can come to learn the skill of being non-judgmental. Imagine how our outlook on life could change if we could even learn to be compassionate with our enemies!
Wise Mind and Avoiding Blame
One way to learn to become non-judgmental is to avoid the tendency to assign blame. Blaming others or our circumstances does nothing to solve the problem. Blaming others only serves to give them an excuse to feel less compassionate and more judgmental towards you. The worst type of assigning blame is something called projecting blame. If you blame others when you act out in emotionally aggressive ways, you are being just the opposite of compassionate.
Such projecting of blame is often accomplished with phrases similar to the following:
“It’s your fault I acted the way I did!”
“I yelled at you because I care about you. I wish you could see that!”
“If you wouldn’t act this way, I wouldn’t get so upset!”
If you find yourself using these phrases, or similar statements, you are projecting blame. While it may be true that others have acted towards you in unjust ways, the choice for how to respond to them is yours. Nobody can anger you unless you allow them to. Nobody can offend you unless you give them permission by choosing to be offended. You cannot control what others do, but you can choose how to respond to them.
Remember that assigning blame doesn’t solve anything, and it only increases the likelihood of emotional aggression for both you and others. If you choose instead to respond non-judgmentally out of compassion, you can improve your relationships by eliminating the need for emotional aggression.
Think about how often your assumptions lead you to making judgments, and how those judgments lead to conflict or emotional aggression on your part on the part of others around you. Is there a way you can enter Wise Mind in a non-judgmental way to decrease or eliminate the conflict?