Monday, June 22, 2015

No Judgment, No Pain



Riding around on my bike this morning,
I realize the mind needs exercise

I mean, not just the body, and blood flow that accompanies the workout
but the mind

And not just doing exercise, which helps,
but exorcise

Exorcism, driving away of evil thoughts

So I started with a gentle chant, while peddling
to myself
"No Judgement, No Pain"

How much judgement keeps replaying over-and-over
about transgressions, either those we did or those that were done to us

And the judgment, the vicious, brutal, non-forgiveness
of ourselves, and others that accompanies this judgment

Last night I watched "The Judge" with Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall,
really a pretty good flick,
and it occurred to me that the manslaughter charge, the blackout
the indictment and conviction of Robert Duvall's character is really the
manslaughter indictment, and conviction that awaits us

We all do the crime, all the time, in our minds

At times we castigate and reprimand,  and do unspeakable things to kill the evil "we perceive",
in "the world", or ourselves or others.

We want to kill evil through judgement,  "once and for all".
Then we can get on with our pain free existence.
Yet it persists, in our minds and we face it daily, or hourly or more frequently.

We can't kill it.
Legally we're bound, we're bound by laws of nature and age, and physical anatomy from killing ourselves or others, with pills or booze or any other devices, gadgets or weapons.
I take that back, we probably can succeed in killing something or someone, or
we can die little deaths, each time we let ourselves go there.

But is there a better way?

What if we tried to refuse to pass judgement, or judge and "live and let live".
What if we forgot to remember?  Refused to spin up or lather up our anger?
What if, for a day, a week or the rest of your life you adopted a different mantra
to deal with the sadness, that underlies the pain, that underlies the anger,
that begats the judgement, which feeds the whole cycle top-to-bottom.


The answer seemed so simple on my bike ride:   no judgement, no pain.

I'm going to adopt this simple mantra when I have these things pop up (because they do, hourly if not more frequently) and see if a new way of thinking can exorcise the demons in me.
The problems that are out there will always be out there,
the ones you can fix, or do something about are inside of your brain.

No judgement, no pain.