Please Leave So We Can Talk About You

Ram Dass wrote,

“The compassion is to let people be as they need to be without changing them.” (Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill)

My sister kept a Post-it on her desk:

Please leave so we can talk about you.

Her staff laughed because they recognized themselves.

How quickly we begin explaining someone, sometimes before they have left the room.

Too loud.

Trying too hard.

Not really listening.

Maybe you know this.

Someone tells a story, and halfway through, you have them figured out.

Someone you love does something familar, and the mind says, Of course.

It happens so quickly that it can feel like seeing clearly. You see the truth.

We’re not cruel for doing this.

We’re human.

Certainty gives the mind something firm to hold.

But the body feels the effort.

And the mind reacts. We get confused and a little fearful:

If I stop judging, will I stop seeing clearly?

Will I become naive? Will I stop seeing the truth? Will I lose my mojo?

Ram Dass was not asking us to ignore what people do. Far from it.

He was pointing toward a way of seeing. It does not turn one moment into a whole person.

If you feel that fear somewhere in your body, be gentle here.

Healthy discernment and destructive judgment often arrive together.

Discernment stays close to what happened.

He interrupted me twice, and I felt myself disappear.

Judgment moves from what happened to who he is.

He is selfish. He never listens. This is just who he is.

We judge because uncertainty is hard.

If someone remains difficult to understand, we must keep paying attention and perhaps revise our story. How do we do it?