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The historical Buddha's style of teaching was open, inviting personal exploration and investigation (pali sanskrit term, Ehipassiko, meaning "come and see"). Although the encouragement of mindfulness practice is to bear witness to one's own subjective involvement in moment to moment experience, we can often fall into the trap of judging our experience as "right" or "wrong" or "good" or "bad".

“Although discerning skillful from unskillful is basic to the Buddha’s teaching, in our Western culture it is a very delicate process. For many people, it is an easy step from recognizing a particular mind state, [mood, or attitude] as being unwholesome to the feeling that you’re a bad person for having it, or that somehow it’s wrong for the mind state to even arise. This pattern of reaction simply leads to more self-judgment, more aversion, and more suffering. It’s not a helpful cycle” - Joseph Goldstein.