Just noticing
During relaxation practices like meditation or the relaxation response, thoughts that come up are not focused upon. Instead, they are simply noticed and released. One's focus is returned, gently, to a mantra or phrase or the breath.
This releasing of thought disconnects us from the stress-producing, judgmental chatter that pervades our days. Without judgment, our minds and bodies reconnect with their naturally expansive state of well-being. Dr. Herbert Benson called this the "Relaxation Response." It has numberless health benefits.
Since I prefer portable practices that do not require sitting quietly with my eyes closed, I decided to cultivate the Relaxation Response anywhere and any time by practicing "just noticing" without judgment as often as I can remember to do so.
Judgment is most often thought of as a negative reaction. Critical people, for example, are said to be "extremely judgmental." But the idea that something is good is also a judgment.
Judgment is the ongoing classification of everything, every thought, and every action into right and wrong, good and bad, should and shouldn't. Therefore, practicing no judgment requires neutrality. Minus judgment, things are not good or bad (although we still have our preferences); they just are.
This is how I practice:
As I go through my day, whenever I remember to, I notice my judgments about everything I see, think, and feel. Dead tree: bad. New fence: good. Clean car: good. Woman with four children: bad. Man walking dog: good. Dog pulling on leash: bad. Worry: bad. Yellow house: good. I'm going to be late: bad. My client likes me: good.
Then I switch to "just noticing." Homeless person. Ultra-expensive sports car. Trash in the street. Newly painted fence. Anxiety. Giant cactus. Car accident. Person cutting me off in traffic. Tree in bloom. Like someone just visiting this planet, I take it all in, weighing everything equally.
In this non-judging state, I go into a sort of mental free fall. I feel poised on the brink of revelation yet utterly grounded. If I have a thought, "good" or "bad," I simply notice it ("Judgment," I murmur to myself) and return to dissolving in the expansiveness of the endlessly creative IS.
As I "just notice," I feel my body relax with a big sigh. My breathing opens, slows, and deepens. Everything seems okay -- better than okay -- in fact. Everything seems resoundingly, ecstatically, perfectly imperfect.
If I were in judging mode, I'd say this is good. But right now, I just notice that it is.
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