On discernment

Discernment is the skill of receiving an immediate intuition of the proper course of action.

This is different from the discipline of analysis. Analysis, the main skill in engineering, is about investigation and inference. It’s deliberate, systematic and deterministic or at least probabilistic. But It’s not immediate. Proper analysis rests on a platform of time, information, and level-headedness.

Discernment is different. It’s ongoing, realtime, and effortless. It’s an omnipresent compass that gets tuned with presence, calm, and attention.

Practicing this on physical sensations is such a hack. You really feel how this is different from analysis, which is my default setting.