The 26th lojong slogan says, “Don’t ponder others.” Much like the last saying, “Don’t talk about injured limbs,” the wisdom here is about tending to our own stuff and not projecting that stuff onto others. Have you noticed how we can so easily find reasons to excuse why we do something wrong? But often, when we judge others, we don’t even look for reasons. We assume we know, or we assume the worst. What if, instead, we gave others the benefit of the doubt?

Jesus once asked, “Why do you look at the speck in your neighbor’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” He wisely suggested we first tend to ourselves before turning to others.

In other words, mind your own business.

Of course, that doesn’t mean staying silent on things that need to be spoken. What it does mean is being sure that we’re always open to doing the work on ourselves. And the reason that’s important is because we have this tricky little way of letting other people’s mess keep us from our own.

The goal in mind training is to do away with as much of this deflection and evasiveness as possible. If we do it right, we start to see ourselves and others in a clear way, while also always clothed with compassion.

When we place our focus on other people, we often find ourselves mired in jealousy, or anger, or resentment. Again, most of the time, these emotions bring up something going on in us. They rarely have much to do with the other person at all. Hence: don’t ponder others.

Norman Fischer reminds us that we can never know why people do what they do. The goal of this slogan is to stop assuming we know what we don’t. He writes, “You are better off assuming that everyone is doing his or her best and that everyone is on the same human journey you are on.” You can’t believe how much less tension you hold in your body when you just start to assume people are doing the best they can. Compassion starts to move around a lot more freely that way.

Don’t ponder others.

This week, track how much time you spend pondering others. Consider letting all that drop away. See if you can just stay open. Return to yourself. Remember there’s a lot to the story that’s unknown. And see how that provides some compassionate lightness in how you walk through your day.