Just A Word......

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.