Do Not Be Concerned About The Frost On Another’s Roof

This teaching is about increasing awareness of how our own minds can tend towards discrimination and opinions of others. A discriminating mind cannot see the whole. Its function is to make decisions and choices. It can only see one thing at a time. Consequently, it cannot see both front and back simultaneously. Because of this, mind becomes easily fixed and obsessive. In matters of a moral or ethical nature, the mind relentlessly pursues right and wrong in order to facilitate the making of a choice.

We are designed to make choices and to seek out meaning and this is an important part of being human. However, the master’s warn us that our minds can lead us astray and recommend a path of ‘returning to our root’, going back to the basics of improving ourselves before we attempt to fix others. This especially applies to morality. The ‘root’ is the real knowledge stored in the ‘shining mind’ of Dao.

‘In order to see the truth one must hold no opinions for or against anything’

Third Zen Patriarch

Avoid being entangled in talking about right and wrong. Be mindful of judging. Judgement rides on the wings of either justification or condemnation, both of which are movements away from ‘what is’, the actual. Subjective reality is not the actual reality.

What happens when one does not judge the conduct of another? Generally, the only thing to do is ‘sweep the snow from your own door step’. In other words, look after your own affairs. Your own affairs are your own business, your own responsibility.

When your mind is making judgements about another, it will be distracted and naturally prevented from best looking after business at home? In other words, making fewer judgements about others facilitates getting your own house in order. We are all here on a mission, and that mission is self-development. Fewer external judgements can facilitate this internal process.

This wisdom is reflected in many cultures and here is the Chinese proverb:

各人自扫门前雪，莫管他家瓦上霜

gè rén zì sǎo mén qián xuě , mò guǎn tā jiā wǎ shàng shuāng

“Sweep the snow from your own door step, do not be concerned about the frost on another’s roof”