One of the first ways to relax judging others is to remember how often we do stupid things. How many mistakes have we made in our life? Now if you can't find any, let me know? I'll help you. The minute you open yourself to this fact, you can relax judging others. Because if we have never done anything wrong, we'd probably already be enlightened.
The Buddha didn't take very long did he? Well, he was nice and pure. But humans today, we don't have very high Paramis to the level of the Buddha and Arahants. The people back in those days, when hundreds of thousands were getting enlightened, they had high Paramis, higher than people today. So we grow up doing things that are not so wise and we have to go through a process of regretting what we did, we have to go through a process of forgiving who we were.
Last night during the Compassion/Lovingkindness meditation, at the end I tell you to think of yourself when you were 6 years old, and have compassion for that person, when you were ten years old, when you were fifteen years old, last year, yesterday. What's the purpose in doing that? So that we really understand that who we were is different to who we are now. Who we were made mistakes, but who we are now is trying not to make mistakes. So as much as we're trying not to judge ourselves for who we used to be, having compassion for ourselves, we have to bring this thought up with everybody whom we meet today.
How do we stop judging others in our mind? We've got to remember that they may just be having a bit of an ignorance attack, Mara might be too strong. To reflect, "They're doing something that is not so wise, I did that also in the past." Give them a Compassion/Lovingkindness wish, then we don't judge them so much. Here's another little saying to remember, "I am not better than you, you are not better than me and we are not equal, we are different." That helps a lot not to judge other people in negative ways, they're different.
If the Mango tree compares itself to the Papaya tree, the Mango tree can get very puffed up and egotistical, "I'm so much bigger than the Papaya tree. Look at me, I lived for a hundred years or more, I'm so strong. The Papaya tree only lives for a couple years, it's so small." The Papaya tree looks up at the Mango tree and goes, "I give fruit in seven months, you take seven years!" And the Papaya tree gets all puffed up comparing itself to the Mango tree. Does that help any? They're different! The Papaya tree, the Mango tree, is one better than the other? Can we absolutely say one is better than the other? No. They're different. So that helps also when we see ourselves judging somebody else. Remembering, OK, by and large other people might have some quality that is better than one of our qualities, even though at that moment, they might be acting in a way that we would never act. So that's helpful.
Now on another side, it is actually important to judge others. Sounds strange after what I said, right? It is important to judge others in the sense of discriminating wise or unwise. The Buddha encouraged it, especially with regard to teachers. Judge me, see how wise I am, test me. Questioning and challenging your teachers with a good intention to try to make sure that the teacher is wise and a good teacher for you is quite okay. There's also judging the qualities or overall conditioning of another person. If you meet somebody who's an alcoholic and wants to take you to a pub, make a judgment! Think and don't go. So that's where judgment is okay, yet, as I hope you understand, different to what I was talking about before.