An
exploration of the ethics of speech originally written in 2002 while
on retreat in Spain.
A
Word In Time
We
speak a lot, some would say too much. There is a constant flow of
words all around us; the spoken word in conversation, on radio and
TV, at meetings of all kinds and the written word in books,
newspapers, magazines, e-mails, faxes, letters and so on.
It
was Benjamin Disraeli who spoke of his political rival William
Gladstone as being “inebriated by the exuberance of his own
verbosity”. We could adapt his phrase to say the whole world is
inebriated with an exuberance of verbosity.
And
what is it all about? What is being communicated with this deluge of
words? Much of it is telling us what to think, what to wear, what to
eat, what to read, what we should look like and what will make us
happy. Much of it is trying to persuade us of one thing or another –
who to vote for, what to buy. And much of it amounts to the empty
prattle of radio DJs or the equally empty content of huge swathes of
the mass media. And what is spoken and written in the world around us
enters into our own consciousness and becomes the content of our own
conversation too. The banality of most verbal communication is not a
new thing, it is just the vast quantity available to us that’s new.
But verbal communication will always be as mediocre or as profound as
the hearts and minds that provide its content and expression.
In
Buddhism this has been recognised and, as well as precepts for
speech, there are precepts for the mind. Not the least of these is
the precept which is worded ‘I undertake the training principle
that consists in abstention from wrong views’. Wrong views are
those which are not conducive to the spiritual growth and development
of the individual in the direction of Buddhahood. They consist of
such views as belief in a soul or self that is fixed and unchanging,
belief in an all-powerful creator god, denying that actions have
consequences, denying that life has any meaning beyond the material
and mundane and not believing in one’s own potential for spiritual
Enlightenment.
As
well as trying to be more ethical in our speech, we are exhorted to
give up wrong views. After all, our speech gives expression to our
views and beliefs, which we so strongly identify with. So strongly
that it could be said that we are our views. So giving up wrong views
means a radical and far-reaching change to our whole being, it’s
not just as simple as changing to a new product brand or a new
political alliance. As we gradually give up wrong views and change in
the depths of our hearts, our actions and our speech are naturally
affected and become more and more conducive to spiritual growth, that
is more and more ethical.
What
is ethical is conducive to spiritual well-being. The term used in
Buddhism for the ethical is kusala, which is usually
translated as ‘skilful’. This indicates that in Buddhism ethics
is not so much a matter of obedience to pre-ordained rules of right
and wrong but more a matter of the intelligent application of
principles to our actions, speech and thoughts. In terms of our
actions, the principles are non-violence, generosity and contentment.
In terms of our speech, the principles are truthfulness, kindliness,
helpfulness and harmony and in terms of the mind, the basic
principles are equanimity, compassion and wisdom. These principles
then have to be intelligently applied to the particular situations
and circumstances of life. The ability to apply these principles
becomes easier and more spontaneous as we gradually purify our hearts
and minds of the basic unspiritual trends towards greed, ill-will and
wrong views.
Initially,
and for quite a long time, our application of the principles
enshrined in the speech precepts is more a matter of discipline and
effort than a spontaneous expression of spiritual purity. I am going
to take a closer look at all four of the speech precepts and try to
draw out the importance of each one and the spirit behind it. But
before I do that, I want to address another principle that applies to
the skilful use of verbal communication. That is the principle of
timely or seasonable speech. This applies to all the speech precepts.
We need to be appropriate.
For
instance, it may not be appropriate to blurt out something even
though it is the truth. The time may not be right and it could cause
harm and suffering. Or if someone is feeling very inflated and
big-headed, it may not be the right time to sing their praises. Or if
two people are at the height of an impassioned row, attempts to
create a premature harmony could be out of place. Or trying to cheer
someone up may not be appropriate if they have just suffered some
terrible loss or bereavement.
This
does not mean that we should be untruthful or unhelpful. What it
means is that in all our communications we need above all to try to
be sensitive to the other person. Communication doesn’t happen in a
vacuum, we are always communicating with somebody, whether in
conversation or giving a talk or writing an article or a letter.
There is always an audience. Otherwise there is no communication. To
be sensitive to others we need to be aware of them.
Some
forms of communication are probably less conducive to awareness than
others. For instance, sometimes one can use e-mail or social media so
quickly that it’s possible to fire off an insensitive or
ill-thought message almost without noticing. Also, telephone
communication is difficult because we cannot see the facial
expression and body language of the other person. Any very important
or emotionally charged communication is best not attempted by
telephone. I think the same applies to media like whatsapp, skype and
zoom.
Whatever
method we are using to communicate we need to bring in as much
awareness of the other person, of our audience, as possible. Being
aware in communication means listening. This seems very obvious, but
it is by no means a common practice. That is why, in spite of the
torrent of words around us, there is in fact very little
communication. Listening is the other half of communication.
Actually, I think that listening is more than half of communication
because without the awareness that comes from proper listening, what
we say or write is going to be that much less of a communication.
Listening
obviously means being attentive to the content of what someone is
saying, but it also means being attentive to the tone of voice, the
emotional atmosphere, facial expression, body language and our own
emotional responses. If we listen in this way, then our conversation
can go deeper and become more meaningful and be altogether more
satisfying. Otherwise conversation can become boring, banal or
irksome. And, of course, by listening we gain the sensitivity to be
appropriate in our communication, to practise timely or seasonable
speech.
As
well as being aware of the other person by listening to them, we need
to be aware of circumstances and environment. For example, if someone
is very distressed it may not be appropriate to take them to a noisy
café to talk about it. Or if we happen to be talking in a noisy café
or the equivalent and something arises in conversation that clearly
demands more serious attention, it would be better to leave than make
the communication more painful or less helpful by having to battle
with extraneous distractions and interruptions.
In
order to listen we need to be quiet. Silence is as important to
communication as speech. In silence we find the spaciousness for that
awareness to arise which will enable our speech to be more
appropriate and, therefore, more skilful. Silence is the fertile soil
in which we cultivate skilful speech. And it’s not just our tongues
that need to fall silent, but also our chattering and calculating
minds. Sometimes people appear to be listening, appear to be silent,
but all the time they are weighing up and working out what they are
going to say next. When two people do this in conversation there is
very little dialogue, more like a monologue a deux. Silence
can feel uncomfortable because in silence we become aware of emotions
and many people are uncomfortable with their emotions, whether of
love, fear, anger or desire. But for this very reason, silence is
also a fertile soil for the growth of self-knowledge, and
self-knowledge or self-awareness can help us to be more aware of
others, more sensitive and more appropriate in our speech.
There
is an image in Tibetan Buddhism of the great teacher and sage
Milarepa. He is depicted seated on a mountainside with his right hand
cupped to his ear, listening intently. He is listening to the song of
the Dharma. He is supremely receptive to the Wisdom of the Dharma.
Perhaps this image of Milarepa could be a symbol for us of the
importance of listening and the beautiful songs of Milarepa a
reminder of the appropriateness of speech that can come from that
listening.
Reading
can seem a very passive activity. The writer does all the talking, as
it were, and we just listen. But in reading we need not be passive,
in fact, we ought not to be passive. We ought to be aware of our
responses. We ought to notice the emotions and thoughts that arise in
us as we read. This makes for a more full interaction with the writer
and we may even be moved to write our own response. The great
artists, writers and philosophers can carry on this kind of dialogue
over periods of centuries. I’m thinking of Blake’s response to
Milton, Schopenhauer’s to Kant, Coleridge to Shakespeare. Or the
great literary biographers Peter Ackroyd and Richard Holmes and their
affectionate, imaginative and immediate relationship with Dickens and
Shelley and Coleridge. It is possible to engage very actively with
what we read and in doing so to learn about ourselves and even to
change and modify our character for the better.
A
Word Of Truth
Without
truthfulness there can be no society. Without truthfulness human
communication breaks down and distrust, hostility and force take
over. Truthfulness is, therefore, of fundamental importance to a
harmonious and peaceful society and of fundamental importance to the
harmonious and peaceful individuals who constitute that society.
To
be truthful we need to be faithful to both the spirit and the letter
of our experience and events. We can perhaps best define truthfulness
by looking at untruthful or false speech. Broadly speaking false
speech falls into the two categories of commission and omission.
The
most obviously active false speech is simply telling lies. Although,
of course, there are degrees of lying. Any variation from factual
accuracy could be construed as lying, although usually we think of a
lie as simply being the direct opposite of what is true. The so
called ‘white lie’ is considered to be the least harmful and
indeed not a lie at all. Perhaps an example is the fiction of Santa
Claus which parents maintain for their children’s pleasure. Because
the intention is kindly and in fact a great deal of pleasure is
derived, this could hardly be seen as unskilful. But there are other
occasions when the motives are less pure and the ‘white lie’
emerges, say, from fear, when it seems more likely to be unskilful.
It is really best to avoid any lying in normal day-to-day discourse
and to try, as far as possible, to be factually accurate.
Exaggeration
and understatement can both be forms of false speech. We can
exaggerate in order to make ourselves seem more interesting and to
make our fairly ordinary lives seem very exciting. We exaggerate
because we want to be loved but don’t think of ourselves as
interesting and attractive enough to be loved. Not only is the
exaggeration unskilful but the lack of self-esteem is too.
Understatement
can have the same root cause. English people are especially prone to
this. It can be a sort of exaggerated politeness, niceness leading to
falseness. So you will hear people say things like, “no, no, I
wasn’t upset” when clearly they were and still are, or “oh no,
it’s no inconvenience” when again it very clearly is and so on.
In wanting to please, to be nice, to be polite, people can sometimes
end up being quite false. You see this sometimes in people’s faces;
endlessly smiling in a sort of desperation to be liked and from fear
of being disapproved of.
There
is also a false speech of omission. This is when what we say is
strictly true but because of what we leave out it is not the whole
truth. In fact, it may even convey a completely wrong impression. And
that can be the intention. For instance, if we don’t like someone,
we may describe them in such a one-sided way as to give the
impression that they are monstrous, because we are either blind to
their good qualities or we don’t want to believe they have any
redeeming features. Or in describing particular events we may want to
show ourselves in a good light, so we leave out what is unfavourable
or embarrassing to us. The truth suffers, communication suffers and
inevitably that means that we suffer and others suffer.
Behind
false speech lies egotism in one form or another. Whether we simply
want to get our own way or we want to control people and events or we
are frightened or we are out for revenge, it all comes back to me,
me, me – the ‘I’ at the centre of the Universe.
One
important step on the way to more truthfulness is an honest
self-appraisal, to see how much we are motivated by fears, or by a
desire to control people and events, which may be just another
species of fear or how much are we motivated by revenge, or how much
is it just a question of childishly wanting to get our own way. So
truthfulness or honesty can begin with ourselves and be built up from
there. If we are honest with ourselves then we will more and more be
living in an honest world, a world or truthfulness. And our honesty
with ourselves is not just confined to our faults or weaknesses or
murky motivations. An honest self-appraisal also takes into account
quite fully our better qualities and our aspirations and efforts to
grow. One sided views, whether of other people or of oneself are
rarely honest appraisals.
By
being honest we create a world of honesty and also by being
untruthful we create a world of dishonesty, which is an unpleasant
and tiring place to live. Dishonesty, once embarked upon, has to be
kept up and becomes more and more complex. So much so that people
sometimes end up believing what started out as a straightforward lie.
In the case of Donald Crowhurst, whom Vessantara writes about in
Tales of Freedom, he started out with what he saw as a white
lie – a lie of convenience. He was sailing around the world as part
of a race and he began to give false records of his whereabouts and
eventually found himself in the situation of being in the lead
because others had dropped out. But the tension of the lies and the
isolation he had put himself in to keep up the pretence, eventually
drove him mad. He just wanted to give himself a little advantage but
one thing led to another and eventually he found himself in a world
that he had created which was completely false and actually
impossible to live with.
Donald
Crowhurst’s experience is just an extreme and dramatic version of
what can happen if we are prone to lying or exaggeration or
understatement. It happens to politicians and other public figures
from time to time. For those of us not in the public eye, it’s
likely to lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness. If we are
dishonest with ourselves and others it becomes very difficult to
trust others and, therefore, to confide in anyone. If we cannot trust
and cannot confide we cannot have friendships and love in our lives.
A life without friendship and love is barren.
A
second step on the way to more and more truthfulness is to confide.
To have someone in our lives that we can be honest with and confide
in. We start by being honest with ourselves and then with at least
one other person. If we want to confide in someone then they have to
be able to confide in us. That means that we have to be able to keep
a confidence. So part of living in a world of truth and honesty is
knowing when not to speak and what not to say. For a healthy
emotional and psychological life we need to be able to confide in
someone, we need to trust someone. For a healthy spiritual life we
need to be able to confess as well as confide.
Confidences
can be of an ethically neutral nature, but confession is about
purifying ourselves of unskilfulness. By experiencing remorse and
confessing our faults we can let go of something weighing on our
minds and feel the freedom of a clear conscience. Confession as well
as involving regret, should also involve making amends where
possible, whether by way of apology or recompense or whatever is
appropriate. So a third step on the way to more and more truthfulness
is confession.
To
avoid an over-emphasis on faults this needs to be in the context of
rejoicing in our spiritual aspiration. We need to recognise that a
confession of faults is only possible because we aspire to greater
purity, wisdom and compassion. So a recognition of our faith in a
spiritual ideal is another step on the way to greater honesty.
Truth
is essential to friendship as well as to the wider human society. And
friendship and emotional warmth is essential to our psychological
well-being. Friendship can go further than that and be the means by
which a spiritual ideal becomes a more real influence in our lives.
The friendship of someone who can guide us spiritually need not
necessarily be close and intimate in an emotional sense, but it does
demand trust, honesty and confession. Truthfulness, therefore, is
essential to human life on all levels, from the functioning of
society to the highest spiritual realms.
The
other side of the coin of truthfulness is believing others when they
speak the truth. Unless we have good reason to doubt someone’s
veracity, we ought to believe them. A good reason has to be something
objective, some evidence of falsehood or a tendency to falsehood. If
we rely on our subjective feelings and hunches, we are quite likely
to make mistakes and be either unnecessarily suspicious or overly
credulous. Within a spiritual community it is essential to give the
benefit of the doubt to our fellow spiritual aspirants. Without that,
trust breaks down and the spiritual community disappears. A spiritual
community is a community of trust by definition. When trust is absent
then the heart and life of the spiritual community withers and dies
and all that’s left are institutions and empty words.
Truthful
speech is essential to human life because it is a reflection of
reality. To live out of harmony with reality is to cause suffering
for oneself and others. In reality all human beings and indeed all
life is interconnected and interdependent. Falsehood denies this
because it is selfish by nature. But reality always triumphs in the
end, it cannot be otherwise. That is what is known as the doctrine of
conditioned co-production, or the law of conditionality, which in
terms of ethics is the law of karma. Put simply, the law of karma is
that actions have consequences; skilful actions have beneficial
consequences and unskilful actions have bad consequences. So false
speech can only bring bad consequences. The fundamental falsehood is
selfishness and the brightest truth is compassion.
According
to the Lalitavistara Sutra, just before the Buddha gained
Enlightenment he was assailed by Mara, the personification of evil.
Mara confronted him in three ways – first with violence which
symbolises the forces of hatred, then with seduction, symbolising
craving and finally by trying to undermine his confidence, which of
course is doubt. The Buddha just observed all this going on and was
unmoved by it. The forces of selfishness no longer had any hold on
him and he could look at them quite squarely and honestly.
He
touched the earth with his right hand and received confirmation of
his spiritual achievement from the Earth Goddess. This represents
objectivity, an honest self-appraisal. Then being free from craving,
hatred and doubt, in other words from selfishness, he was able to
look beyond himself. The leader of the gods, Brahma, appeared to him
and asked him to teach the Dharma and he assented. Compassion
flowered in his heart as it must inevitably when the realisation of
the unity of life is firmly established. The naga prince, Mucalinda,
appeared and gave protection to the Buddha. The energy of the Truth
is a powerful protection and an energy that sends waves of influence
throughout the world and down the ages, unlimited by space or time.
Truthfulness is much more than not telling lies.
A
Word Of Love
Metta,
usually translated as loving kindness, is the fundamental principle
of Buddhist ethics. Stated in the negative form, it is the principle
of non-violence. When this principle is applied to speech we arrive
at the precept that exhorts us to refrain from harsh speech or engage
in kindly speech.
Kindly
speech is an expression of metta. It is not a case of being nice in a
rather superficial way. We need to cultivate positive emotions such
as love, generosity, compassion and sympathetic joy and allow this
positivity to find expression in our speech and writing.
We
develop loving kindness through the Metta Bhavana meditation
practice, through acting generously and through being a friend to
others. This last point is important. We often hear about the
importance of friendship in the spiritual life and we tend to think
that yes, it would be good to have spiritual friends. But we need to
take on board that friendship is not something we can have; it is
something we need to do. If we practice friendship, generosity and
the Metta Bhavana meditation we will be cultivating the positive
emotions which are the basis for all Buddhist ethical life, including
kindly speech.
More
specifically, we can also quite deliberately develop a habit of
rejoicing in other people’s good qualities and good deeds. We can
develop a habit of praising and encouraging others. Because of the
quantum of negativity that we are heirs to, the quantum of negativity
that is part and parcel of unenlightened humanity, we tend to find it
easy to criticise, to blame, to complain and to see faults and
weaknesses everywhere.
Part
of our spiritual training and development is to actively work against
these tendencies of thought and speech. So that rather than being
cynical about those who are more developed than us, competitive with
peers and contemptuous of those less developed, we need to endeavour
to open our hearts and give expression to gratitude, friendliness and
encouragement.
We
need to cultivate gratitude towards those who are more experienced on
the spiritual path, those who have made an effort and have set up
conditions that enable us to practise and progress. And we need to
give expression to this gratitude as a practice of kindly speech and
as a way of not being lulled into complacency or taking for granted
the institutions and people who are helping us to grow.
With
our peers we should be friendly and co-operative. Those who share our
aspirations and are, like us, making an effort to grow spiritually,
are invaluable companions. Whoever thinks he or she can make
spiritual progress without the help of other people is deluded. It’s
just not possible. So if we are in a situation where lots of people
are making a spiritual effort we are extremely fortunate and need to
recognise the opportunities that are available to us. One way of
availing very fully of these opportunities is to befriend others and
to co-operate with them to maintain the positive conditions we have.
We need to work to maintain the positive atmosphere of spiritual
aspiration and effort and we need to work to support the institutions
of classes, courses and retreats which provide conditions for the
expression of that aspiration and effort.
In
relation to those who are less experienced or less spiritually
developed than us, kindly speech is a matter of encouragement and
perhaps, on rare occasions, advice. But as the Dhammapada says,
“First establish yourself in what is good, then advise others”
(verse 158).
If
we make an effort we can develop the positive habit of giving
frequent expression, in speech or writing, to our feelings of
gratitude, friendliness and compassion. This is kindly speech.
Criticism can also be kindly. If we have a criticism to voice we need
to question ourselves as to our motivation. If we genuinely have the
other person’s best interests at heart and feel that we can
communicate our criticism in a way that is helpful, then it is
appropriate to be critical. Such criticism is compassionate. Unless
we are unusually aware and perceptive, we probably need to know
someone quite well before we can tell what is really in their best
interests, except in a general way. The Buddha, in the Dhammapada,
goes so far as to say that we should associate with those who
criticise us constructively. “Should one see a man of
understanding who, as if indicating a buried treasure, points out
faults and administers reproof, let one associate with such a
spiritually mature person” (verse 76).
Harsh
and unkind speech takes many forms, some very overt and some hidden.
Overtly harsh and unkind speech are such things as swearing, teasing,
cynicism, abusive language, and so on. Hidden harsh and unkind speech
are such things as malicious humour, ‘back-biting’ and whatever
other ways we use to give vent to our negative emotions indirectly.
Sometimes
people defend swearing on the grounds that it is a way of being real
or authentic. This may be true if one is in a relatively crude and
unskilful state of awareness but, if one is inhabiting relatively
more refined states of consciousness or even aspiring to something
higher, then swearing and crude language are not at all authentic. In
fact, they are much more likely to be a façade, a sort of verbal
bravado, to hide one’s sensitivity behind.
Humour
is also sometimes excused from criticism on the grounds that it’s
good to have a laugh. And yes, it is good to laugh and joke sometimes
but it ought not to be at someone else’s expense and it definitely
ought not be an underhand way of criticising others. Quite often what
passes for teasing can have this sort of malicious edge to it. This
is not to say that teasing is always unkind or unskilful, just that
it can be and we need to be aware of the tendency for humour to
become a vehicle for negativity. When spirits are high, awareness can
go out the window.
Sexual
innuendo is another area of harsh speech. This kind of adolescent
humour is quite ugly and unsavoury in the mouths of adults and
unfortunately sometimes people’s conversation is peppered with it.
This can either be because one is obsessed with sex in an unhealthy
way or simply because one has developed a habitual way of speaking
that one considers to be witty and sophisticated, but outside the
school yard is not really considered particularly interesting or
intelligent. Ugly and unsavoury speech creates an ugly and unsavoury
atmosphere. Harsh and unkind speech creates a harsh and unkind
atmosphere. Kindly speech creates a loving atmosphere. By learning to
speak in a kindly and sensitive manner we create a world around us
which is enjoyable to live in. A world where we can relax and be free
from the stresses and strains of verbal warfare, with all its
crudeness and malice. Kindly speech is the expression of metta or
non-violence, and non-violence is the fundamental ethical principle
of Buddhism.
A
Word To The Wise
Samphappalapa
veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami is the third of the speech
precepts and translated it means ‘I undertake to abstain from
useless speech’ or sometimes ‘samphappalapa’ is
translated as ‘frivolous speech’, but more positively this
precept is an undertaking to engage in meaningful or helpful speech.
Primarily this means helpful to the spiritual development of the
individual, however, it can include other more mundane kinds of
helpfulness.
Meaningful
or helpful speech in the spiritual sense does not mean talking about
ethics or spiritual practice or being serious and pious all the time.
In fact, if talking about spiritual matters becomes a substitute for
actual practice then it is not at all helpful or meaningful. Of
course, meaningful speech can include these kind of topics but it is
not necessarily the content or the topic that makes speech meaningful
or helpful.
Frivolous
speech is superficial and unaware and is the product of a mind that
is superficial and unaware. Meaningful speech is the product of a
mind that is aware and awareness brings depth of experience and
understanding. So, one’s speech becomes meaningful and helpful in
the spiritual sense to the extent that one develops awareness. This
means awareness of one’s self, of other people, of the environment
around one and of reality. One is aware of oneself to the extent that
one knows where one is and what one is doing, saying, thinking and
feeling. Awareness of other people involves seeing beyond the
externals of physique and personality and being mindful of their
humanity. Awareness of the environment around us enables us to see
the world in a non-possessive, non-utilitarian way and, therefore,
take greater delight in it. Awareness of reality is the intuitive and
reasoned response that allows us to have a spiritual perspective on
life and to experience spiritual realities.
Awareness
taken to the highest degree is Enlightenment and one of the
archetypal symbols of Enlightenment is the Bodhisattva Manjughosha.
Manjughosha means ‘the gentle voiced one’ and this symbolism
emphasises the Wisdom aspect of Enlightenment. In his left hand he
holds the book of the Perfection of Wisdom to his heart and in his
right hand he holds aloft a sword with flames around the end of the
blade. This sword, which he holds very gently with the tips of his
fingers, is the Jnanakadka , the sword of wisdom and it cuts through
all wrong views effortlessly, all the time emitting the flames of
transformation. This is the zenith of meaningful speech. The gentle
voice of Manjughosa speaks from the depths of Enlightened awareness
and transforms wrong views into Wisdom. At this level we can hardly
talk of meaningful speech at all since we are in the realms of a
direct communication that surpasses the rational faculty.
Coming
back down to a more appropriate level we can say that meaningful
speech is the expression of a meaningful life. A meaningful life is
one that is dedicated to the attainment of the perfection of Wisdom
and Compassion. Another way to speak of this dedication of one’s
life to the highest spiritual ideals is in terms of Going for Refuge
to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Going for Refuge to these three
precious Jewels means putting them at the centre of one’s life, so
that the majority of one’s time, energy and abilities are concerned
with following the Path and realising the Truth which is enshrined in
the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. As our lives become more and more
permeated with the Truth, Beauty and Goodness of the spiritual Ideal,
our communication naturally becomes permeated with these qualities
and our words, whether spoken or written, become more and more
meaningful and helpful.
Following
the Path and realising the Truth demands great dedication. It is an
heroic endeavour demanding great commitment. One must be committed to
developing greater awareness, one must be willing to change one’s
views and one’s habits, one must be dedicated to ethical practice
in thought, word and deed and one must constantly refresh one’s
faith and inspiration. All of this requires effort. We need to put
our energy into meditation, devotional practice, study and the
cultivation of spiritual friendship. This effort will give us access
to a richness of experience and knowledge that will be the raw ore of
our thoughts, which we refine through reflection and contemplation
until it becomes the gold of our conversation.
But
helpful or meaningful speech is not simply a regurgitation of our own
experience and insights, however profound. To be helpful and
therefore meaningful to someone else we need to have awareness of the
other person. We need to be able to empathise sufficiently to know
what it is appropriate to say. This involves listening, as I said
earlier.
Our
words are probably most helpful when we speak to what is best and
highest in other people, rather than colluding with their weaknesses
or pandering to neurotic tendencies. As Sangharakshita says “you
must not relate to a neurotic person on the basis of his neurosis”.
( Peace is a Fire p60 ). To be helpful means to encourage someone’s
efforts to evolve spiritually, to praise what is praiseworthy and,
above all, to be friendly and generous in our communication.
What
we say comes from what we think. What our minds are engaged with
depends on what we see and hear; what we read, what radio, TV,
internet, cinema or theatre we immerse ourselves in. Some things are
more profound, partake more of the nature of reality, than others.
There is a huge amount of trivia that we can be exposed to and this
is something we need to be aware of and do something about, if we
want to access the depths and gain some insight into the nature of
existence.
To
quote from Sangharakshita again: “One
of the great disadvantages of the mass-media is that trivialities can
be given an importance that they absolutely don’t possess. People
need to be delivered not just from tragedy and disaster, but from
triviality. Triviality, in fact, is one of the greatest disasters
that happen to us.” (Combined
Order Convention 1985 - Questions and Answers)
Triviality
is dangerous because it tends to keep us wandering around lost in a
cloud of ignorance, sometimes so confused that we don’t even know
we are more asleep than awake. So for our experience to be meaningful
and, therefore, for our communication to be meaningful we need to be
quite selective about what we allow into our minds. Not all earth and
rock can be refined into gold. Dross remains dross whatever we do
with it and trying to refine it is a complete waste of time.
So
a meaningful life is one that is concerned with evolving into a
higher state of consciousness and realising the Truth. Helpful and
meaningful communication flows from a life lived on this Path, a life
dedicated to embodying the True, the Good and the Beautiful, a life
committed to Going for Refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. If we
live like this, we will be rich indeed and our speech will “unlock
the treasured heart” as Coleridge put it.
A
Word Of Magic
Words
are powerful. They can move us to acts of great love or great
cruelty. The sublime utterance of a spiritual Master or the
impassioned rantings of a Hitler or Pol Pot are examples of extremes
but all of us have the power to use words to inspire others to
action. We can all affect and influence the world around us through
our speech. Indeed, whether we wish to or not we all do influence
others by what we say. Our influence will tend to be either
harmonising or divisive. Gossip, slander, rumour-mongering,
complaining, flattery, harshness and untruthfulness are all divisive
and destructive. They are destructive of trust and good will and,
therefore, destructive of any sense of community. So these ugly
verbal excesses should have no place in a spiritual community.
The
power of words, almost magical in its potency, can be put at the
service of our highest Ideals and used to create the positive
conditions we need in order to progress spiritually. A major
condition that enables us to grow and develop is our spiritual
communion with others who hold the same ideals and are making a
similar effort. This is the spiritual community or Sangha. When we
use speech in a harmonising way, we are creating the spiritual
community.
As
the Dedication Ceremony says, “May our communication with one
another be Sangha”. Our communication with one another is generally
through speech. So speech is the thread from which the beautiful
tapestry of the Sangha is woven. If you are going to weave a
beautiful tapestry, your thread has to be clean, strong, beautiful.
If we are going to create Sangha, our speech has to be clean, strong
and beautiful.
The
highest level of skilful speech is Harmonious Speech or Harmonising
Speech. This is speech which creates harmony, especially speech which
creates harmony where previously there was strife or disharmony. The
practice of Harmonising Speech involves passing on whatever good or
positive things we hear about others and refraining from
disseminating whatever might lead to quarrels or disputes.
Harmonising Speech enriches the lives of those around us and tends to
create the co-operative and harmonious atmosphere that is essential
to the life and health of the spiritual community.
The
four levels of speech as set out in the Four Speech Precepts are to
be practised to purify our speech. They are how we train ourselves to
be ever more skilful in our conversation and in writing and indeed
whenever we use words. They are training principles. This is how we
would naturally and spontaneously speak if we were Enlightened.
Because we are not Enlightened we have to make an effort to practise
these precepts, we have to be mindful and vigilant as we speak so
that we don’t lapse too often into old habits of exaggeration or
harshness or slander.
Kindly
Speech is one of the Four Sangrahavastus or one of the Four Means of
Unification of the Sangha. This corresponds more or less to the
Fourth Level of Speech – namely Harmonising Speech. However, it is
slightly different in that the motivation or intention behind it is
slightly different.
The
intention behind Harmonising Speech is to purify one’s own speech,
to be more ethical, to train oneself to be more sensitive and
appropriate in one’s speech. The motivation for Kindly Speech as a
Sangrahavastu or Means of Unification is to create Sangha, to create
the Spiritual Community. So Harmonising Speech as a precept is
practised for one’s own sake and Harmonising Speech as a Means of
Unification is practised for the sake of the whole Spiritual
Community. It is a wider, more expansive Ideal. It is the speech
aspect of the Bodhisattva Ideal. The Bodhisattva Ideal is the Ideal
of practising the spiritual life and attaining Enlightenment not just
for one’s own sake but for the sake of others too, in fact, for the
sake of all beings.
So
Kindly Speech or Harmonising Speech as a Sangrahavastu is an
expression of the Bodhisattva Ideal, it’s an expression of the
altruistic, other-regarding aspect of the spiritual life. Speech at
this level is concerned with building the spiritual community,
creating the conditions and atmosphere in which the Sangha can
flourish and grow.
If
we create the conditions for the spiritual community to grow and
thrive, we help ourselves as well as others because we are part of
the spiritual community, we need the spiritual community. As always
in Buddhism what helps others, helps ourselves too. To quote
Sangharakshita, “We cannot help others without helping
ourselves, we cannot help ourselves without helping others”.
(Complete Works, Vol. 16,p.472)
Harmonising
Speech is the highest level of speech but it is essential that we
realise that each level of speech includes the preceding levels. In
other words, Harmonising Speech is not separate and distinct from
Truthful Speech, Affectionate Speech and Meaningful Speech. It
includes them. If we want to practise Harmonising Speech we need to
ensure that our speech is also Truthful, Affectionate and Helpful.
Sometimes,
perhaps because we have a poor self-image or low self-esteem, we
don’t recognise the effect our words can have on others. But our
words do have an effect. Perhaps it’s easier to get a feeling for
the effect our words have by considering the effect that words have
had on us, how we have been affected by what others have said. I’d
like to give you two examples from my own life – two positive
examples of being strongly affected by the words of others.
I
come from a very poor background in rural Ireland and when I was
eighteen I came to London and got a job with a firm of accountants
and studied accountancy. A few years later I was well on my way to
professional qualifications and a lucrative career. As you can
imagine, my mother was proud of me – my whole family was. But I was
not satisfied. In fact, I was very unhappy – I was tormented by
more existential questions about the meaning of life and found my
career suffocating and meaningless. I wanted to give it up and go
forth, to use the Buddhist expression (which I was not familiar with
then), but I was very worried about upsetting my family and
especially I was worried about distressing my mother (my father was
dead). However, I didn’t know my mother’s strength and when I
eventually told her that I wanted to chuck in my career and had no
plans for my future – I was surprised and delighted by her
response. She was a poor, uneducated, unsophisticated countrywoman
but her response, though simple had a profound effect on me. She
said, “it is your life, you must live it as you see fit”. I felt
liberated by those words. And ever since then, those few words of my
mother, “it is your life you must live it as you see fit” have
been a sort of touchstone of inspiration and integrity to me. So it
is my experience that a few simple words can have a profound effect,
especially when they come from the heart.
Another
example from my own life occurred in 1983 when I was living in West
Berlin. I met a Sri Lankan monk ( Ven. Maha Dhammanisanthi) who told
me about the Five Precepts and taught me the Metta Bhavana and, as a
result, I realised that I was a Buddhist. Those few words changed my
life completely and set me on the Buddhist spiritual path.
I’m
sure if you reflect on it for a moment you will find examples in your
own experience of the strong effect that a few words can have –
either examples of your own words affecting others or yourself being
affected by the speech or writing of others.
Wordsworth,
who knew something about words said, “Words
are too awful an instrument for good and evil to be trifled with.
They hold above all other external powers a dominion over thoughts”.
(Stephen Gill, William
Wordsworth, A Life, OUP 1989) Words
can be used quite consciously as an instrument for good – and that
in essence is what Kindly Speech as a Means of Unification is about.
It’s about using words, using speech as an instrument for creating
harmony.
So
how do we use speech as an instrument for creating harmony? I have
come up with four practical suggestions for how to put Kindly Speech
into practise more fully. First of all clean up your speech. If
you’re in the habit of swearing or being harsh in your speech then
you need to give it up. Swearing, cynicism and harshness in speech
can be a habit – a bit like smoking. When we are adolescents we
smoke to show how grown up we are and we swear for the same reason.
However, the real proof of adulthood is giving up the habits of
adolescence. So if we have any adolescent habits of speech we need to
give them up as a basis for embarking on a more thorough practice of
Kindly Speech.
My
next two suggestions involve talking about people behind their backs.
Usually talking about people behind their backs is understood to be
‘back-biting’ or slanderous speech.
But
we can speak well of people behind their backs, praise and rejoice in
people behind their backs. This can be a very powerful, effective
practice. It helps to create Sangha in a way that even direct
face-to-face rejoicing doesn’t. It creates an atmosphere of
friendliness and goodwill, an atmosphere of Metta in which harmony
flourishes. The two specific ways in which to talk about people
behind their backs are firstly appreciating what they do and secondly
rejoicing in their qualities.
It
is often quite easy to take people for granted and especially to take
for granted what they do. But we shouldn’t take what people do for
granted. We should try to be aware of the efforts people are making,
of the energy they are giving and the effect they are having. And we
can give voice to that awareness by appreciating what they do. We can
appreciate them face-to-face, tell them that we appreciate what they
are doing and in our practice of Kindly Speech, we can appreciate
them behind their backs too.
Rejoicing
in someone’s qualities requires even more awareness. What someone
is doing can be quite obvious but their qualities can be much more
difficult to see. We need to observe people and think about them in
order to really see their qualities. It’s possible to see very
general qualities in almost anyone who is trying to practise the
spiritual life, but to be aware of their uniqueness, their special
qualities, and to give voice to that is much more difficult. That
requires reflection. To notice and give voice to someone’s special
qualities is like calling them by their real name which, of course,
is what happens when people are ordained and given a new Dharma name.
By rejoicing in someone’s uniqueness, in their special qualities,
we can give the gift of awareness to others and we can contribute to
creating a harmonious atmosphere in which the Sangha can flourish. We
can also cultivate this atmosphere by passing on any rejoicing or
appreciation that we have overheard.
The
fourth practical suggestion for Harmonising Speech is perhaps the
most difficult of all because it demands positive emotion and
confidence – giving encouragement. That seems simple enough, but I
think giving encouragement can be very difficult indeed. To give
encouragement needs courage. Giving encouragement is in fact giving
courage. So often we suffer from fear, lack of confidence, low
self-esteem and a host of similar selfish emotions and we sink down
into self-pity. To be able to encourage others we need to be able to
raise our heads out of the mire of self-pity and low self-esteem and
take positive action in spite of our fears. If we can take
responsibility for ourselves and do something about our lack of
Metta, we will be giving courage by example. If we can expand beyond
our self-concern and empathise with others, words of encouragement
will come naturally to us.
Words
of encouragement are not sentimental. They are not “there, there”
kind of words that might be spoken to a baby or a pet. Words of
encouragement should be invigorating, energising and uplifting. When
we need courage to face our fears and overcome our self-imposed
limitations, we need energy. To encourage others is to give them
energy. The energy to change and grow.
These
are my four suggestions then or these four are the challenge of
Harmonising Speech and Kindly Speech as a means of unifying the
Sangha. Perhaps a central point is that what you say to
people is important but what you say about
people is even more important.
To
practise Kindly Speech you need courage and energy. You need the
courage and energy to go beyond your habits and enter into a new way
of interacting that is inspired by a burning desire for harmony, a
passion for unity. When we have the courage and energy to break out
of our habitual ways of speaking and are able to appreciate, rejoice
in and encourage others in a kindly and gracious manner, then we are
able to practise Harmonising Speech or Kindly Speech as a Means of
Unification of the Sangha. Our words become a magical, unseen force
that create a world of harmony and happiness.
