As soon as you concern yourself with the “good” and “bad” of your fellows,
you create an opening in your heart for maliciousness to enter.
Testing, competing with, and criticizing others weakens and defeats you.
Morihei Ueshiba, The Art of Peace, page 55
This is such a wonderful verse. Like other truly profound teachings, it causes everything within me to settle deep down. It’s a lot like the deep-centered feeling of sitting in the full lotus posture (assuming one isn’t being tormented by rending knee pain!)
I think the reason for this is that it acknowledges and reinforces the fundamental truth of our lives: that we are not 
separate. We’re living together as one, and anything I direct towards someone else is felt equally (or more!) by myself. It’s as if we’re living in the same room, breathing the same air, and eating from the same plate. If I said I was…
separate. We’re living together as one, and anything I direct towards someone else is felt equally (or more!) by myself. It’s as if we’re living in the same room, breathing the same air, and eating from the same plate. If I said I was…View original post 435 more words
Wake Up and Laugh! 
What can one do about the inner dialogue that judges, competes
Once we become aware of it, we have to let it rest. Usually that means not indulging it and going along with what it would like to do. In a real sense, we relax and don’t feed it energy. It’s like something that catches your attention out of the corner of your eye, and there’s a moment there where we have a choice to respond to the urge that says “more, show me more.” This is where paying attention pays off, as well as a regular meditation/spiritual practice such as entrusting whatever comes up to our Buddha-nature. If we’re somewhat consistent about that, then we’re aware of that moment when we have a choice in how we respond. If we’re usually caught up in whatever is going on, we often don’t notice that, and just react to the desire for more, to judge, to compare, etc.
As we begin to see others as ourselves, as we begin to sense our connection with everything around us, this desire to judge and compare begins to fade. Working on viewing whatever happens, whatever comes to us, in a positive light will also be tremendously helpful in this.
Great question! Thanks!