Judgement is a loaded term and can be interpreted in many ways. When I speak of avoiding judgement, I do not speak against establishing preference in one's mind or even deeming certain actions by others harmful because they infringe on the freedoms and safety of others. I speak more to moralizing and condemning another as bad or evil. If I were a professional judge or a law-making, I would obviously have to spend time judging and weighing the importance of conflicting value systems to arrive at a judgement/law that was fair. As a human being, I evaluate circumstance and other people wrt to how I would prefer to spend my time ... I arrive at preference and avoidance. There are those who reach something akin to Buddha stance, those that take everyone and everything as it comes, but I do not think this a realistic expectation for most. The only Buddhas I have ever encountered were dogs. I kid you not.

I specifically speak of moralizing and condemning as having a dualistic relationship with compassion. If I have condemned an individual as evil and his undesirable behaviour as evil and not a result of conditions he had little control over, nature or nurture, then I am not practicing compassion. Compassion takes the venom out of decision making. Perhaps you might now see how moralizing can have no place alongside compassion. If I make decision based on moralizing, I might be led to punish and not just protect and remediate. Moralizing and condemnation leads to vengeance type thinking and compassion does not. Compassion leads to a more civilized and caring world, a safer world. Moralizing does not. If moralizing were going to work, it would have long before now. It is a rather popular approach to things.

The compassion I speak to is not specifically about a 'set of emotions'. Although it tends to create the purest of emotion, unconditional love. Empathy deals more in a 'set of emotions'. Compassion often comes from seeking to understand where another is coming from, you need not adopt their emotional stance. Indeed, I would recommend in the case of suffering states you do not. Compassion forms no enemies but empathy may. You may suffer while empathizing; compassion heals suffering. I know this might not be a dictionaries definition, but in the case of enlightenment practice, it is important to redefine the term and remove it from empathy. Empathy can exclude; compassion does not.

To meditation ... NO ... I mostly certainly mean sitting in a state of as little thought as possible. Thinking or more specifically ruminating (moralizing, condemning, and despairing) is the opposite of meditation. When you first begin you may realize that this is a far more challenging task then you ever thought possible, but if you persist, with time, an altered perspective is revealed to you and often zen is obtained. What you describe sounds delightful but it is not the meditation I speak of. You are creating or relaying thought. Depending upon the content of the thought, it could be a fulfilling pursuit, but it is not meditation.

Homework if you want ... Why don't you try to sit for as long as you can and see how long before a thought arises on its own? And when the thoughts do arise ... they will ... see if you can observe the thoughts and not engage and attach.