Keys To Good Judgment

Good judgment is essential for cultivating health and happiness.   With it, one makes better choices, resulting in greater health and happiness.  Without it, one will habitually make choices that produce suffering and attract misfortune.  

If you desire to realize health, happiness, and peace, your success depends on your level of judgement.  It is your responsibility to improve your judgement.  No one can do it for you.

Why Good Judgment Is Uncommon

As the Buddha observed, common people are afflicted with the three poisons of greed, anger and ignorance.  Greed is desire for and attachment to what one judges to be pleasant; anger arises from aversion to or hatred for what one judges to be unpleasant.   Ignorance, greed, attachment, anger and aversion poison one’s mind, resulting in poor judgment.  One need only examine one's own experience to confirm that when one's mind is under the influence of one of these poisons, one has bad judgment.    

For example, under the influence of ignorance and greed for pleasure the vast majority of people in modern nations choose to eat refined grains such as white flour and white rice.  Even some isolated tribes have adopted refined grains upon exposure to them.  Some people believe that this is an example of good judgment because whole grains contain alleged anti-nutrients such as phytate.  

This opinion assumes that the majority of people have some innate good judgment about food, nutrition and health.  Nothing could be further from the truth. 

In Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Weston Price documented the extensive damage done to people of isolated tribes when they ‘adopted’ refined grains. The isolated Swiss of the Lotchental valley provided a particularly instructive example.  Those that remained on their traditional diet based on whole grain rye bread had quite good health, while those who adopted a low phytate diet by replacing whole grain rye with refined flour and sugar developed dental disease and general poor health.  The photos below show the excellent dental health of young women raised on whole grain rye bread.

Price observed the same phenomenon among the Gaelics of the Outer Hebrides.  As shown in the photos below, those Gaelics that remained on their high phytate diet based on whole grain oats (upper and lower right)  had excellent dental and good general health, while those who adopted refined flour (upper and lower left) degenerated.  

This illustrates that people who regard whole grains as unhealthy foods and refined grains as better foods do not have good judgment.  In fact, eating a diet based on whole grains improves cardiovascular and nervous system health which improves one's judgment.

 It also bears mentioning that many isolated tribes were forced to replace their traditional foods with white flour and so on because merchants and colonizers cut them off from their traditional lands and food sources.  

The majority of modern people willingly consume alcohol, soft drinks, white sugar, animal products and foods laden with artificial chemicals, rarely or never thinking twice about their choices.  They judge the value of foods according to what temporarily pleases the palate or costs the least money to purchase or trouble to prepare. 

You can tell a person's level of judgment by their health and happiness. Since the majority of modern people are sick, weak or degenerate in one way or another, we can conclude that modern education and food produce people with poor judgment. 

This occurs largely because modern  'scientific' education ignores, mocks or denies the most important philosophical and supreme levels of judgment that formed the basis of traditional (premodern) civilizations.  Without education in and development of these higher levels of judgment, one will inevitably lack good judgment.

Seven Levels of Judgment

Traditional Oriental culture, exemplified in Chan (Zen) Buddhism and Taoism, identified seven levels or stages of judgment. 

Human judgment develops from level 1 to 7.  Each level comprehends and includes all levels below it, but is ignorant of all levels above. 

Study the following chart to determine your level of judgment.

Classical European philosophy also recognized levels of judgment.  Plato illustrated the levels of judgment with his allegory of the cave.  Most people in the cave are in the dark; they think the shadows cast on the wall––the appearances––are reality.  They are stuck in the mechanical, sensory and sentimental levels of judgment, fooled by appearances that are created by more knowledgable people.  The magicians, scientists, technicians and artists who know how to manipulate appearances are at the intellectual and social levels of judgment; they manipulate the common people by casting misleading shadows using theatre, narratives, stories, theories.  Although these people know how to manipulate appearances, they are still in the cave, ignorant of the upper realm.  The man who breaks free from the chains and heads past all the cave dwellers towards the light coming from above represents those with philosophical judgment, heading for supreme judgment based on direct experience of the highest light and truth.  

Illustration by 4edges - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73850232

All traditional civilizations understood that the purpose of life is to become a fully developed human, which requires development of philosophical (or spiritual) and supreme levels of judgment.  Moreover, traditional civilizations recognized that only individuals who had developed philosophical or supreme judgment could lead others to genuine health and happiness, because only they understand the true nature of reality.

Reality is not what it seems to be to those who lack philosophical and supreme judgment.  Put otherwise, Reality is not what you perceive or conceive (sense or think).  

People operating at the first five levels of judgment use sensations, perceptions, and conceptions, the limited faculties of the human mind, as the basis for making judgments.  Further, they are fascinated by phenomena, which are merely appearances, things that appear and disappear. (The word “phenomenon” comes from from Greek phainomenon "that which appears or is seen.”) The human senses and mind are intrinsically limited (finite) and things that appear and disappear are not ultimately real; they are neither real, nor unreal.  Speaking from my own experience, so long as one lacks philosophical and supreme judgment, and a Right Understanding of Ultimate Reality, one will often be fooled by appearances.  

Many people in modern culture regard Western science as the provider of the highest level of judgment.  However, modern science deals only with temporary appearances, consisting of forms (bodies), feelings, perceptions, and mental activity.  In fact, scientific theories are nothing more than conceptual frameworks.  Modern science does not and can not offer any understanding of Ultimate Reality, because science consists of conceptual descriptions, and Ultimate Reality (a.k.a. the Supreme Being) is beyond the reach of all concepts.  At best, a scientific theory is akin to a map, and maps are not reality, any more than a menu is food.  

Right Understanding For Good Judgment

Right Understanding is the foundation of the Buddha’s Eightfold Noble (literally: Aryan) Path to liberation from ignorance and its consequences, bondage, suffering and misfortune.  In What The Buddha Taught, monk Walpola Rahula explains:

As already mentioned, what we call science is conventional knowledge, a study of appearances following specific conventions.  Classical philosophers and students of spiritual development focus on understanding the Order of the Universe, the Natural Laws underlying, giving rise to and governing all human experience.  The most fundamental of those Laws is the Law of Justice.  In Oriental philosophy this is also called the Law of Karma.  The word “karma" means action, so the Law of Karma explains the consequences of human action.  

 The Law of Justice rules over all other natural laws governing human experience.  It refers to the underlying non-dualistic moral order of the universe, and is most simply stated thus:  

AS YOU SOW, SO SHALL YOU REAP.  WHATEVER ONE DOES TO OTHERS, ONE DOES TO ONESELF.  

In accordance with this Law, if one willfully or through neglect causes suffering, damage and loss to others, one will eventually experience the suffering, damages and losses similar to what one has imposed upon others, unless one repents and undertakes truly beneficial actions that over-ride or compensate for the harm one previously caused.   

All the enlightened sages in human history have taught that everyone is subject to the universal law of justice.  This Natural Law is the reason for the Golden Rule:  Do not do to others what one does not want done to oneself.  If one persists in arrogantly going about harming other beings for one’s own pleasure and profit, as if one is above the Law of Justice, one has bad judgment and will come to misfortune.  

In the Dhammapada (Righteous Path), the Buddha taught that one who engages in harming other beings for pleasure or profit will suffer specific consequences.

When one orders a specific food, and promises to pay for its delivery, one is ordering (i.e. causing) the provider of the food to do what is necessary to produce that food.   Anyone who himself kills animals for food or pays someone else to provide animal products is a party to the abuse, torment and execution of innocent sentient beings.  The Surangama Sutra further explains that one must strive to refrain from eating or wearing animal products to raise one’s level of judgment and achieve liberation from greed, anger and ignorance.

In the Discernment of Karmic Recompense Sutra, the Buddha taught that if one wants health, happiness and longevity, one must follow 4 rules:

• First, one must not abuse, torment, or kill other sentient beings, either human or animal.
• Second, one must not incite or encourage other people to abuse, torment or kill either humans or animals, but must advise other people to refrain from such violence.
• Third, one must not praise actions that praise, torment or kill  humans or animals, and one must praise those who refrain from such violence.
• Fourth, one must not delight in witnessing the abuse, torment or killing of either humans or animals, and one must delight in witnessing others avoid or end the abuse, torment or killing of either humans or animals. 

Modern science has confirmed that Japanese and Korean Buddhist monks, nuns and priests who follow the practice of refraining from eating animal products (at least to a far greater degree than common people) have longer, healthier lives than common people of their nations.

Traditionally Buddhist monks ate vegan diets, but some modern monks have a lower level of judgment.   A 1984 study reported that at that time about 9% of Japanese Zen priests remained faithful to the Buddha's recommendation to never eat meat, poultry or fish, while less than 7% ate animal products every day (Japanese study here).

More than 20 years ago all Korean Buddhist monks and nuns were vegans, and a 2009 study found that South Korean Buddhist monks and nuns generally eat a cooked vegan diet (i.e. grains and vegetables), although because some occasionally include milk , animal products provided a mean of 2.1% of total energy intake (study here). Korean Buddhist clergy have better health and lower mortality rates than non-vegetarian Koreans (study here).  

This is particularly significant given that the common people of Japan and South Korea currently rank second and third in the world for healthy life expectancy.  To the point, in two of the healthiest and long-lived populations in the modern world, Buddhist priests who avoid eating animal products in favor of a traditional macrobiotic diet of cooked and fermented whole grains, vegetables, seeds, nuts, fruits and salt are the healthiest and most long-lived people.

In 2015, NPR reported on South Korean Buddhist Temple vegan cuisine.

Buddhist Diet For A Clear Mind: Nuns Preserve Art Of Korean Temple Food

The head nun, Gye Ho, correctly states that "The food creates the entire human being. It shapes our mind and body."  

Pythagoras also taught that one cannot reap happiness if one heaps pain and unjust death on animals:

Good Judgment Requires Good Memory

To have good judgment one must have a good memory.  In his book Zen Macrobiotics George Ohsawa explained:

The principle is simple:  If you have learned how things work, you can exercise good judgment.  On the other hand, if you forget what you could have learned, you can only have poor judgment.  

The more you remember the better your judgment.  A healthy person’s memory improves with age and experience.  Those who devote their lives to knowing the Infinite Ultimate Reality develop the most powerful memories; it is necessary to remember where one came from.  Ohsawa remarked:

To know and understand the Infinite one must fast and pray.  To fast means to eat only what one actually needs –– whole grains, vegetables, seeds, nuts, microbes and salt –– and abstain from everything that is unnecessary luxury, especially things that one can obtain only by taking life, liberty or property from innocent creatures, i.e. animal products.   To pray means to empty one’s mind of the temporal and pay attention to the ever-present Infinite.  

Memory loss is called dementia because to be de-mented is to lose one’s mind.  Dementia is the result of years of exercising poor judgment, which is caused by ignorance and arrogance, as a consequence of which people choose to eat rich food that pleases the palate but poisons and thickens the blood, leading to to suffocation (oxygen deprivation) and damage of the brain and nervous system. A high fat, high protein animal based diet promotes age-related memory loss.  

The Adventist Health Study found that subjects who ate meat (including poultry and fish) were more than twice as likely to become demented as their matched vegetarian counterparts, and when past meat consumption was taken into account the meat-eaters were nearly three times as likely to become demented.  Research indicates that a plant-based diet is associated with prevention and delay of cognitive impairment. 

Right Food For Good Judgment

Your judgment depends upon what you consume, and on your physical condition; and what you consume depends on your level judgment. We all know that intake of alcoholic beverages or drugs will change your physical condition and consequently impair one’s judgement.  

People who have poor judgment, due to ignorance, will consume foods, ideas, sights, sounds (including music), and smells that impair their judgment.  People who have right knowledge can exercise good judgment and consume foods, ideas, sights, sounds, and smells that support good health and judgment.  

For more than one thousand years, Chinese Taoist medicine has maintained that the mind-and-spirt  are housed in the heart, thereby recognizing that healthy mental function is dependent upon the health of the cardiovascular system.  Modern reductionist medicine has proven this is correct.

The brain and nervous system require a constant supply of oxygen and nutrients, particularly glucose sugar, for healthy functioning.  When the human brain is deprived of glucose, cognitive abilities rapidly deteriorate, beginning with mild sensory disturbances, and progressing to lethargy, stupor and coma; only glucose can reverse this impairment of judgment.¹

Atherosclerosis of the carotid arteries that provide blood to the brain can reduce blood flow to the brain.  Symptoms of restricted blood flow to the brain include:

• partial or complete loss of vision or double vision
• dizziness or vertigo
• numbness or tingling
• confusion
• slurred speech
• weakness in the limbs
• loss of balance

Severe restriction of blood flow to the brain can cause cerebral aneurysm, transient ischemic attack, or stroke.²

Food choices can impair oxygen and glucose delivery to the brain.  For example, when one consumes high fat or high sugar foods, this causes the blood stream to become loaded with fat.³  This results in red blood cells aggregation and poor oxygen delivery to the cells, particularly the brain cells.⁴ 

Thus we see that Taoist Five Element Theory is correct in maintaining there is a very close relationship between the cardiovascular system and the mind.  To have good judgment, one must have a healthy nervous system, and to have a healthy nervous system, one must have a healthy cardiovascular system.  

In contrast to high fat and high sugar foods, fiber-rich starchy foods such as whole grains do not increase levels of blood fat in healthy people.⁵  Whole grains support good judgment because they provide the glucose, vitamins and minerals that the nervous system needs to operate efficiently, without clogging the cardiovascular system with sticky fat and waxy cholesterol.  

Also, the health of the central nervous system requires adequate sodium intake.  Low blood sodium (hyponatremia) over the short term causes headache, lethargy, disorientation and depressed reflexes and over long term progresses to seizures and coma.  Mild chronic hyponatremia impairs the brain and has been associated with gait impairment, attention deficit, and elevated risk of falls in humans, and animal studies have provided support for the hypothesis that chronic mild to moderate hyponatremia may play a role in brain distress and aging including impairment of memory.⁶   

I once believed that low salt intake was beneficial for health as claimed by various public health organizations, but I have since learned that we need sodium in much greater amounts than recommended by these organizations.⁷  Experiments performed by Nishimuta and colleagues indicate that people need upwards of 10 g of salt daily to remain in sodium balance.⁸ 

I now understand that many people have poor health on a vegan diet because they do not consume enough salt, resulting in  poor digestion and elimination, fatigue, weakness, impaired memory and cognition, degeneration of teeth and bones, impaired immunity, and other results of deficiency of sodium and chloride.  If one wishes to thrive on a vegan macrobiotic diet one must include adequate salt.

People who have poor judgment in food choices are often biologically compelled to eat or drink certain things because they have previously eaten other things.  Their appetites arise from a need to restore homeostasis, not from any good judgment.  For just a few of many examples:

• People who eat diets rich in animal products are typically instinctively attracted to strong black tea, coffee or alcoholic beverages.  Tea and coffee decrease post-meal rises in blood fats.⁹  Alcohol acts as a solvent for fat.  Large doses of caffeine stimulate the nervous system that is dulled by fat-overload and oxygen deprivation.
• People who eat large amounts of animal products typically choose white flour and white rice over whole grains because soft, light refined grains are more  appealing than heavy, dense whole grains when one is consuming meals rich in heavy and dense animal protein and fat.  No one wants their rich, heavy beef burger on dense, chewy sourdough whole wheat bun.  
• Also, generally speaking, whole grains provide more protein, fat and fiber than refined grains.  When one is consuming large doses of protein and fat from animal products, one will typically be attracted to fruits, sugar and refined grains because these will provide what is missing from the meat or eggs, namely the carbohydrates that the brain needs, without providing more protein and fat.  

An unhealthy cardiovascular system is a consequence of poor judgment in selection of foods, due to ignorance of one’s true nature.  Man is a granivore, not a carnivore or omnivore.  As explained by William C. Roberts, MD of the Baylor Cardiovascular Institute and Baylor University, this fact is evident from the fact that humans who eat animal products develop atherosclerosis, which never occurs in biological carnivores or omnivores:

Ill health, unhappiness and misfortune are the results of ignorance, greed, arrogance and poor judgment.  Ignorance and greed lead one to choose actions and foods based on sensory, sentimental, scientific or social standards without Right Understanding of the Order of the Universe and its Law of Justice. 

To have the highest level of good judgment, one must have Right Understanding of reality, engage in contemplative disciplines to free oneself of attachment and anger, and eat food that provides the brain with a steady supply of glucose and all other required nutrients, and prevents cardiovascular and neural diseases:  a vegan macrobiotic diet based on whole grains, supplemented with land and sea vegetables, seeds, nuts, fruits, microbes and salt.

Notes

1. Dienel GA.  Brain Metabolism: Integration of Energetics with Function.  Physiological Reviews 2019 99:1, 949-1045.  <https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/physrev.00062.2017>

2. Sissons C.  What to know about reduced blood flow to the brain.  Medical News Today 27 June 2018.  <https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322275>

3. Bozzetto L, Della Pepa G, Vetrani C, Rivellese AA. Dietary Impact on Postprandial Lipemia. Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2020 Jul 7;11:337. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2020.00337. PMID: 32733374; PMCID: PMC7358426. <https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7358426/>

4.  CULLEN CF, SWANK RL. Intravascular aggregation and adhesiveness of the blood elements associated with alimentary lipemia and injections of large molecular substances; effect on blood-brain barrier. Circulation. 1954 Mar;9(3):335-46. doi: 10.1161/01.cir.9.3.335. PMID: 13141361 <https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/epdf/10.1161/01.CIR.9.3.335 >

5. Bozzetto L, Della Pepa G, Vetrani C, Rivellese AA. Dietary Impact on Postprandial Lipemia. Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2020 Jul 7;11:337. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2020.00337. PMID: 32733374; PMCID: PMC7358426.< https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7358426/ >

6. Giuliani C, Peri A. Effects of Hyponatremia on the Brain. J Clin Med. 2014 Oct 28;3(4):1163-77. doi: 10.3390/jcm3041163. PMID: 26237597; PMCID: PMC4470176.

7. Heaney RP. Making Sense of the Science of Sodium. Nutr Today. 2015 Mar;50(2):63-66. doi: 10.1097/NT.0000000000000084. PMID: 25972617; PMCID: PMC4420256.

8. Nishimuta M, Kodama N, Yoshitake Y, Shimada M, Serizawa N. Dietary Salt (Sodium Chloride) Requirement and Adverse Effects of Salt Restriction in Humans. J Nutr Sci Vitaminol (Tokyo). 2018;64(2):83-89. doi: 10.3177/jnsv.64.83. PMID: 29710036.

9. Desmarchelier C, Borel P, Lairon D, Maraninchi M, Valéro R. Effect of Nutrient and Micronutrient Intake on Chylomicron Production and Postprandial Lipemia. Nutrients. 2019 Jun 8;11(6):1299. doi: 10.3390/nu11061299. PMID: 31181761; PMCID: PMC6627366.

10.  Roberts WC. Twenty questions on atherosclerosis. Proc (Bayl Univ Med Cent). 2000 Apr;13(2):139-43. doi: 10.1080/08998280.2000.11927657. PMID: 16389367; PMCID: PMC1312295. 

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