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As my teacher once said, "If you can't control
your mouth, there's no way you can hope to control your mind.' This is
why right speech is so important in day-to-day practice.
Right speech, explained in negative terms, means
avoiding four types of harmful speech: lies (words spoken with the
intent of misrepresenting the truth); divisive speech (spoken with the
intent of creating rifts between people); harsh speech (spoken with the
intent of hurting another person's feelings); and idle chatter (spoken
with no purposeful intent at all).
Notice the focus on intent: this is where the
practice of right speech intersects with the training of the mind.
Before you speak, you focus on why you want to speak. This helps get you
in touch with all the machinations taking place in the committee of
voices running your mind. If you see any unskillful motives lurking
behind the committee's decisions, you veto them. As a result, you become
more aware of yourself, more honest with yourself, more firm with
yourself. You also save yourself from saying things that you'll later
regret. In this way you strengthen qualities of mind that will be
helpful in meditation, at the same time avoiding any potentially painful
memories that would get in the way of being attentive to the present
moment when the time comes to meditate.
In positive terms, right speech means speaking in
ways that are trustworthy, harmonious, comforting, and worth taking to
heart. When you make a practice of these positive forms of right speech,
your words become a gift to others. In response, other people will start
listening more to what you say, and will be more likely to respond in
kind. This gives you a sense of the power of your actions: the way you
act in the present moment does shape the world of your experience. You
don't need to be a victim of past events.
For many of us, the most difficult part of practicing
right speech lies in how we express our sense of humor. Especially here
in America, we're used to getting laughs with exaggeration, sarcasm,
group stereotypes, and pure silliness -- all classic examples of wrong
speech. If people get used to these sorts of careless humor, they stop
listening carefully to what we say. In this way, we cheapen our own
discourse. Actually, there's enough irony in the state of the world that
we don't need to exaggerate or be sarcastic. The greatest humorists are
the ones who simply make us look directly at the way things are.
Expressing our humor in ways that are truthful,
useful, and wise may require thought and effort, but when we master this
sort of wit we find that the effort is well spent. We've sharpened our
own minds and have improved our verbal environment. In this way, even
our jokes become part of our practice: an opportunity to develop
positive qualities of mind and to offer something of intelligent value
to the people around us.
So pay close attention to what you say -- and to why
you say it. When you do, you'll discover that an open mouth doesn't have
to be a mistake.
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