Judgment vs. Discernment with COVID Vaccination
"Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing
and right-doing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about."
When you read this quote by Rumi, you might feel a "yes" in your heart. Then you start thinking about it. You might hear yourself say, "But there are things that are just wrong. We can't ignore that!" You begin to think of things that you imagine are important to label as wrong. In the pandemic, to vaccinate or not vaccinate lives for many as an issue of right or wrong. The moment you label vaccination as right or wrong, that "yes" you felt from the Rumi poem leaves you, and you find no fields for your soul to lie down in. Instead, you feel a sense of tension and your heart contracts.
The consciousness of Mindful Compassionate Dialogue is inviting you to ask questions that inspire wisdom and compassion. One such question is, “What serves life?” or “What is most life-serving in this situation, place, within this community of living being, or with this person?”
These days many find themselves spending hours and hours reading about the vaccine, engaging in detailed analyses, or reading persuasive arguments regarding COVID vaccination. When these pursuits are driven by an attempt to determine right or wrong, they offer very little insight into what actually serves life. This is because right and wrong thinking is fundamentally based on fear and aversion, a visceral reaction of the reptilian triune brain. This is not the part of your brain that discerns what serves life with groundedness in wisdom and compassion.
Regardless of its lack of usefulness, judgment arises. Your brain habitually sorts at least some experiences into categories of right and wrong. From a place of mindfulness and self-responsibility, you get to decide how you will respond to such habits. Tragically, when you follow an impulse to categorize something into right and wrong, you will create multiple versions of the very thing from which you wish to distance yourself. For example, when you express a judgment such as, “Government leaders are dividing society with a vaccine policy,” or, “Government leaders are not dividing society with a vaccine policy,” you create division in yourself and possibly in those around you. Whether you view a judgment as positive or negative, it is still an oversimplification of anything it attempts to describe. Such oversimplification usually blocks curiosity and compassion.
Discernment is a process of taking the time to notice what truly serves life. It arises from a place of true caring and desire to contribute. Asking the question, “What serves life?” naturally focuses your thoughts on what you can do practically where you are and with the resources you have. Rather than running down abstract mental rabbit holes of right and wrong, you are inspired to become curious and stretch yourself to become intimately engaged with life. You participate and take action in your family and community where you can observe the results of your action. With such feedback, you can become ever more skillful. With discernment and careful observation, you learn about yourself, others, and the myriad and subtle ways life unfolds - thus you cultivate wisdom and compassion.
Practice
Is there an experience in which you find yourself caught in judging right or wrong? Use this mental habit of judgment as a cue that you need empathy for underlying anger, fear, or grief and to connect deeply with what matters most to you without thoughts of what should or shouldn’t be.
