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By Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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.
Suggested Further Reading
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Source:
© 1999 Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Reproduced and reformatted from
Access to Insight edition © 1999 For free distribution. This
work may be republished, reformatted, reprinted, and
redistributed in any medium. It is the author's wish, however,
that any such republication and redistribution be made available
to the public on a free and unrestricted basis and that
translations and other derivative works be clearly marked as
such.
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