The Judgment Nexus
“She makes me so mad!” This is the kind of thing we often overhear or say. “That is depressing” is another example. We talk all the time as if external stimuli come into our minds and have certain effects on our emotional states or even actions. We might also say, “that is just how I am” or imagine that our past has built us such that these triggers are simply “who I am”. While I am no Master Yoda, I would like to invite you to unlearn what you have learned. If the following begins to make you feel troubled or upset because you suspect this is victim-blaming, please read on because I will address that important and reasonable concern.
Have you ever noticed that sometimes, when you’re having a bad day, little things will enrage or offend you? This might include someone cutting you off in traffic, or forgetting to put something where it belongs, and so on. But on other days you might be in a good mood and even fairly egregious things simply float by you and aren’t a big deal - even the very same things! This shows how variable our assessment of what is ‘angering’ is. It suggests there is something more going on here than merely stimulus and response. And, it shows that, whatever that thing is, it is not something hardwired into “who we are”. Otherwise, our response would always correlate to the stimulus.
But maybe you’re thinking that this doesn’t hold up for larger categories of things. Suppose you come home from work to discover someone in your yard digging up your garden! But now suppose that you had earlier scheduled someone to come and do that as a service because you wanted to make changes in the yard. Your knowledge of what was behind the immediate situation changes the emotional response completely.
Once a friend told me how he was in line in the grocery store and the person in front of him was acting strange and not moving up when they should. This person seemed to be some kind of inconsiderate trouble maker and my friend became angry. But soon after, the person in front turned around and it was revealed that they had a developmental disability. Suddenly my friend’s anger dissolved and was replaced by guilt.
What these things show is that there is not a direct link from stimulus to feeling response. Instead, there is something at the nexus between these two, which is judgement.
Usually when we think about judgement we imagine a conscious thought process of weighing up things and making a decision. But our minds are a lot faster than this, and a lot trickier. When you have the feeling that your response was automatic and something that “of course” anyone would do, then what is really happening is a tiny, microscopic moment where your mind has made a judgment about the stimulus you’ve received. More importantly, it didn’t just make a judgment that the stimulus was good or bad. It also made a judgment that your emotional response was the best way to respond to the situation; something I’m sure we can all agree lacks accuracy in many cases.
In fact, you will find that when distinguishing between healthy and unhealthy emotional responses, the difference is what kind of judgments are behind them. Unhealthy emotions are a reaction to misjudgment1. The good news is that there is a cure for our condition.
People are often drawn to spiritual wisdom. They share it on social media, they recite it to themselves or enjoy reading it. They gain comfort from it. They can intellectually see the truth in it but continue to fall short of it. They might return to it when suffering as a source of consolation or continued growth. What I’m going to try to convey to you is not any of that - it is something far more powerful.
Through the right kinds of thought and practice, it is possible to do several things. First, it is possible to increase your ability to maintain awareness and attention on your internal mental state as it is arising. This alone helps us to step outside ourselves and not get ‘swept up’ in an emotion.
Second, it is possible to slow down that reaction time between stimulus and response - or at least quicken your attention to it such that the nexus between becomes wider and easier to see.
Third, it is possible to consciously alter your character over time such that the kinds of judgments your mind naturally makes in that nexus come more into line with the wisdom teachings you so often like to remind yourself of after the fact.
As such, you will be able to see that you more often naturally and automatically respond to things in life wisely. You will enjoy healthy emotions, that are the most beneficial responses to situations, because they spring from true judgments. You will become more able to do this without effort or the need to ‘suppress’ or ‘control’ anything (which is unhealthy)2. Instead, there will simply be nothing that arises which requires being ‘controlled’.
In this whole judgment nexus line of thought, it is possible for some people to get the wrong idea. I want you to know that I’ve written this book as a love letter you3. My only intention is that you enjoy greater equanimity and peace in life. It is therefore important to make some clarifications and caveats.
The first uncomfortable notion that can begin to arise as people read about this is a feeling they are being blamed for their problems. This is somewhat of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the idea that we have within us the power to make our inner lives better is the most empowering thing imaginable. You can see why someone who has experienced that revelation and for whom it has provided great happiness would want to share it with others.
But on the other hand, one hearing this can’t help but think about their lives up to this point and think that what is being suggested is that all of your suffering only happened because you were ignorant or stupid or failed to do something you should have. This is a very hurtful suggestion and it isn’t true at all.
The truth is that we are all ignorant; we are all trying to get along in the world and do the best we can. And no matter what progress we make, we all have much more to learn. The fact that we can always know something more that might be helpful is kind of a cosmic rule. Our current knowledge level isn’t within our control, nor is our current level of wisdom.
My wife once lamented that humanity isn’t better; that we aren’t doing better for the planet and each other. She said it was aggravating because she knows we have the potential to do so. I said, yes we do have that potential - but does the entirety of humanity have the potential to be this enlightened today, right now? Because that is where we are. And that is why you couldn’t have done anything other than what the universe brought you to be able to at each point. But now, if it is the right time, you have the opportunity to move to your next chapter. That is the loving message of empowerment I hope this will be.
Another important point is that none of this excuses the bad actions of others or minimizes the difficulties of circumstance you have faced in your life. People often claim superior wisdom, knowledge, endurance, willpower, or ability and are blind to the privileges of fortune that lead to their life’s events and to their response to them. This kind of teaching should never be considered a substitute for seeking justice in the world, addressing the bad things and bad actors who harm others, and such. We will all face difficulties of various levels, and the techniques here are how some people who have lived through the harshest of circumstances (than I will ever truly know) made it through.
This teaching must be accompanied by self love and a patience to know that we all make progress as the universe unfolds in its own way, with us as part.
And, as someone about to hand over something very powerful, I feel it incumbent upon me to note this teaching must also be delivered with love. All too often, those who subscribe to very helpful teachings on personal fortitude and wisdom take what is supposed to be advice for them, and use it egotistically to criticize others. It is true that many people delivering this message often do so in a judgmental way and you may have experienced that. These folks are not checking the true motivations behind their speech.
Or, they take the fact that ‘offense is within our control’ as some kind of excuse to be offensive. As I hope you will see in the rest of this book, these thoughts and practices only work if taken as a whole system. That system involves many other things, not the least of which is focusing our practice on the person in the mirror, and always being compassionate.
So, in summary:
1) Between our perception of an event (stimulus) and our emotional reaction to it (response) is always a nexus of judgement - a moment where some part of our mind is making a decision about how best to react. These judgments are often irrational, false, or illogical. When they are, they lead to unproductive and unhealthy emotion.
2) That judgment nexus is often instantaneous and may be invisible to us or seem automatic. But, through practices that increase our mindfulness we can expand that nexus and learn to see our thoughts as they arise. This helps to ‘break the spell’ under which they place us, and also allows us to examine our thinking. Through philosophic learning and practices to instill that wisdom more deeply, we can shape our deep-seated judgments to be more in line with wise thinking over time.
3) As this process continues, we will find that our natural and automatic emotional responses will be based on wise and true thinking, and will therefore result in more productive and healthy emotional responses - without the need to try to control or suppress any emotion (which can be very harmful and is not advised).
4) All of this means that your True Happiness is entirely within your power - a liberating and positive thing to know. But at the same time, this knowledge does not implicate you or blame you, because your knowledge of these methods is not something that is inherent or was within your control. They must be learned, and one must have had the right set of circumstances come about in order to know them. You are not to blame for your suffering, but there is a way for you to take control of it.