Walking last night in the light rain, such a treat in southern California, looking at houses and noticing what I said to Tomas. "I like this, I don't like that, that's nice, ooh look at that, that's cool, that needs work..." a steady stream of my opinions, as if they mattered.
I wonder about it, this constant judging...
It seems the truly Zen approach would be to take everything as it is, accept it, embrace it. Someone wise once said that "peace is the absence of against-ness" which seems somehow to include the absence of judgment, and I do agree...
but only up to a point.
We are human, supposedly made in God's image, and if so, what is the god-like thing about us except to create? To imagine something that is not there, or imagine something is different, and then make it so.
To build, improve, create-- any or all of it requires noticing what you do and don't like, what you exactly and precisely prefer. Without that noticing, choosing, judging, there is no need built up to create or do anything.
No pressure to express the self, except through the choices, the judgments we make about what we do like or don't.
It is the only way to know what we truly want to cause to be, isn't it?