In Buddhism, there is the concept of Don't Know Mind. When I used to practice Zen meditation, one of my practices was to meet each thought that would arise with the inner comment "Don't know, don't know, don't know." What do I ever actually, really, truly KNOW in life? It's profoundly difficult to even get to know my own mind, let alone to presume that I understand the inner workings of someone else's mind.
And yet I shorthand other people constantly, reducing them to one dimensional cartoons: that person is a jerk, a demon, a loser, a saint, that person will never change, never heal, never come around.
I would venture to say that fixated mind is one of the biggest impediments to compassion. When my mind is fixated, I can't be creative, I can't be kind, I can't imagine a greater outcome for the situation, I can't flow and surf the ever changing waves of life. Due to some challenging and painful events in my community in recent weeks, I have gotten to know my own fixated mind even more intimately, as I have reduced the complex conditions and circumstances of other people's actions and words to simplistic caricatures, so that I can file the fear and grief I have been feeling into a convenient lock box deep inside.
But, hey, that doesn't work. The truth comes out in dreams, in aching joints, in fatigue, in a general overall not feeling right about myself. I know I'm not acting or thinking from spacious mind; I'm acting and thinking from narrow fearful mind, which never offers many options. For me, I use the judgment/curiosity question. Am I immediately judging someone or a situation? If so, I know I'm in my fear brain, my primitive brain, the part of my brain that is simply reactive, and doesn't think at a very high level. I'm just trying to protect this organism, I sense threat, I react and try to protect. The irony is that the reactive mode just creates more pain and suffering for me, as I wall myself off behind my opinions like a barricaded castle.
In contrast, and this is the working edge of my life right now, am I in curiosity mind? Hm, I wonder why that person acts that way. In Buddhism, the concept of causes and conditions is also taught; there is no such thing as an isolated, independent action, event or even emotion. Everything and everyone is a complex bundle of causes and conditions that led to a certain moment or a certain action. If I can be curious, open-hearted, and compassionate about the causes and conditions inherent in everyone's life, I can live and perceive like the sky, watching the clouds flowing through her great endless space of heart.
I am committed to expanding my capacity for love and compassion in this lifetime, and believe me, it is a warrior's practice. That's why in many traditions the image of the warrior is used to portray the difficulty of bringing more air and light into the fixated human mind. One teaching says, "Changing a habit of mind is like trying to turn a ship in the middle of the Ganges River in monsoon season."
And yet, through the examples of great souls, great friends, and great teachings, I am hopeful that collective human mind can rise to the capacities it was created to embody: unlimited love, boundless compassion, endless space, profound courage.
