Is judgement bad?

When practicing mindfulness, the goal is to learn see the world without judgement. Often guidance is given to “let go of judgement,” for instance. But is all judgement bad? Don’t we need judgement to make sense of the world, in order to make good decisions and to avoid bad ones?

I make a distinction between predictive judgements, ie, that a course of action would likely turn out good or bad; and value judgements - ie, that people are inherently good or bad.

Predictive judgements are necessary for survival, and being competent at them makes us successful, wise, and I think, to an extent, happy. Predictive judgements allow us to thrive when they succeed, and even when they don’t, they provide valuable experiences that allows us to make better predictions next time - or perhaps to find creative uses for those experiences in other contexts.

Making value judgements of people, even if it's because of things they do or say,  is what I try to avoid, because then I carry around the burden of having to retrieve a narrative about them that gets in the way of being present in the world, which is my main goal.  This is especially harmful when the person I am judging the value of is myself.

In my workshops, I try to promote the letting go of this kind of judgement  - self-defeating narratives like “I have no sense of rhythm" or "I am tone deaf” - when practicing mindfulness. Letting go of these judgements opens people up to exploring instead how they can express themselves musically and spiritually in their own unique ways.

Another way of saying the same thing is to cultivate total acceptance. Then instead of (value) judgement, one can make space for curiosity, gratitude, and growth.