A Talk on Right Speech

Right Speech is one of the aspects of the Noble Eightfold Path. It involves being mindful of your words and speaking in a way that is benficial to yourself and others, not harmful.

Right Speech includes abstaining from telling lies, using harsh and divisive speach, and abstaining from idle gossip

Transcript

Samavacca We're going to go directly into right speech.

Samavacca.

So the Buddha gives a definition of right speech.

It says the definition.

And what is right speech?

Abstaining from lying,

Abstaining from divisive speech,

Abstaining from abusive speech,

And abstaining from idle chatter.

So these four things are what the Buddha calls right speech.

And just from the names of them you can understand how engaging in these kinds of,

The opposite of these speech,

You know,

Abusive speech,

All these kind of things,

You can see why,

How these kind of,

These acts of speaking can cause harm,

Can cause issues between yourselves and others.

So,

And that's not even getting into,

Deeply into them.

So the first one is Musavada,

It's lying.

And so the definition that the Buddha gives about lying,

His description is,

Somebody who is invited to a town meeting or goes in front of a judge or anything like that,

And if they have seen,

They say,

I haven't seen.

If they have seen,

They say,

I haven't seen.

No wait,

If they have seen,

They say,

I haven't seen.

If they haven't seen,

They say,

I have seen.

But basically they're lying,

They're not telling the truth.

And he says,

And they do this for their own benefit,

For the benefit of another,

Or for the benefit of some reward.

So this is the Buddha's direct definition when he talks about lying.

He says,

I have seen,

You say,

I haven't seen.

Or I haven't seen,

You say,

I have seen.

So it's basically going directly against your experience.

You saw,

But you say,

Oh,

I didn't see.

And indeed the Buddha is pretty serious about lying,

Because he says,

For the person who does one thing,

There is no evil deed that cannot be done.

And which one thing is that?

Telling a deliberate lie.

So you can see the seriousness of the Buddha's opinion on lying.

And of course,

Today in the Q&A,

Somebody might say,

Well,

What about white lies and all these kind of things?

And that's a common question.

And there's no real easy answer to that.

So I don't have time to go into too much detail about these things.

So the Buddha says,

A person who lies has given up concern for the world.

It's pretty serious.

And so we can obviously see in our daily lives that we want to do our best to consciously speak the truth.

One of the things I noticed as I became a meditator,

I started realizing how much I lie,

Even just silly things.

Even like somebody will ask how much of this.

And for some reason,

I'll say more.

And then I realize something.

No,

I over-exaggerated that.

I said too much.

When you really start to look at your speech,

You also realize how much you lie to yourself as well.

And you easily convince yourself of things.

So when you start to make the conscious choice to try to live your life by the truth,

It's really eye-opening.

And you can really see.

And so that experience allows you to see how deluded we are.

And then that is the beginning of you replacing that delusion with wisdom.

So it's very important to do our best.

That's not to say that we're always.

.

.

Maybe an Arahant will never tell a lie.

But this is us.

We don't take these on.

We don't follow these principles because we think we're going to be perfect.

We follow these principles to train in living better with them.

At the end of tomorrow,

After I speak about these things,

I'm going to talk about the five precepts.

Because this Sila division of the Noble A-Ful path is encapsulated in those five precepts.

And you'll see that when you take.

.

.

Those of you who take the precepts,

You know,

Oh,

I will abstain from harsh speech.

And then the next day somebody cuts you off in trapping.

You're like,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And then you feel really bad.

You're like,

Oh,

I broke the precept already.

It hasn't even been a day.

Right?

So you don't want to get too hard on yourself in that regard.

You have to realize that these are.

.

.

The Noble A-Ful path is a path of practice.

I call it being a student of the path.

And whether you're a monastic or a lay person,

The path to awakening,

The path to peace and freedom is the Noble A-Ful path.

I'm following the Noble A-Ful path to the best of my ability and screwing up and trying to do better,

But I'm following the path.

You guys,

You take on this practice,

You're doing the same thing.

You know,

You're doing your.

.

.

Do your best to follow this path.

So we know that,

Hey,

I'm not going to.

.

.

You know,

Maybe I'll say,

Maybe I go a month without lying.

And then four days later,

Even if it's something that's maybe not totally deliberate,

But you're unmindful and you say something,

You realize,

No,

That's not true.

And you can backtrack and you can say,

Oh,

No,

I said this,

But now that I'm mindful and I'm understanding,

That's not true.

This is true.

So that's lying.

The second one is pisunaya.

Actually,

Banteji was talking about pisunaya yesterday,

Often translated as malicious or divisive speech.

So the way the Buddha describes this one is somebody hears something from a person over there and tells a person over there in order to divide these two people.

So he's talking about somebody who is using their speech to divide people,

To be divisive,

And he says that this person is a lover of factionism,

Saying he loves to break people into different groups and see them fighting and all that kind of stuff.

You know,

Somebody who loves,

Who thrives on factionism,

Breaking people apart,

Causing strife.

And so we can think about this in our daily lives,

At work,

Right?

That's a common pastime.

You might be walking by and people are talking,

Did you hear what that person did?

Did you hear this person is doing to this and that and all these things?

People are gathering all this information.

And then they go to another group of people yapping and they say,

Oh,

I heard from this,

This,

And all these kind of things.

And that is,

Again,

Something that can be done or is done in a very unmindful fashion.

You know,

It can be something that becomes so common and so part of daily speech that we don't even realize the harm of it.

But when we are mindful of our speech,

We realize the harm of it.

And having that mindfulness engage in your actions is the key to really seeing with insight your sila and the damage that these things can do.

So the next one is parusaya,

Abusive speech,

Rough speech.

And the Buddha says that this is,

He speaks words that are harsh,

Biting,

That are abusive to others,

Provoking anger,

Destroying concentration,

Getting people all riled up.

Like you have,

Like,

You know,

There's a protest or there's a political rally and then there's the guy and he's yelling,

He's going,

Oh,

These people over there,

They're doing this,

They're doing that,

Getting people all riled up and angry and all this kind of stuff.

Right?

Using our harsh words.

Now,

It is interesting,

There's a sutra,

And again,

I think Banteji alluded to this,

But he didn't go into detail about this.

And somebody comes up to the Buddha and says,

Do you ever speak harshly to your disciples?

And he says,

Yes,

Yeah,

I do,

Occasionally.

And the Buddha,

The example the Buddha uses is,

Suppose you have a child and the child has something lodged in their throat,

And he's talking to a king,

And he says,

If your child had something lodged in your throat,

What would you do?

And he says,

I would put my finger in there and take it out,

Even if the child bled.

And so,

Buddha says,

Likewise,

Sometimes out of compassion for my disciples,

I have to speak harshly.

The key is,

Though,

We can get really deluded,

Oh,

You know,

This person,

You know,

Maybe they're not listening to reason,

Maybe I really have to speak harshly at him,

That'll,

You know,

That'll really get him,

And they'll understand after that.

We don't have ultimate compassion and wisdom like the Buddha does,

So it can be,

It's very,

That can be very dangerous.

So,

In a way,

It's best in most cases,

Almost all cases,

To avoid having this harsh speech,

Having speech that's pleasant and conducive to,

You know,

Joy and peace in people.

And so,

The last one is idle chatter.

Polyword is,

Some papa-lapa.

Bhanteji likes to make a little joke,

He calls it an anumanapya,

Some papa-lapa,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And so,

This is simply,

This is literal frivolous talk,

Useless talk.

The thing,

You can think of this as water cooler talk,

That's what they call it,

Right,

You're just around the water cooler at work or whatever,

And you're talking about BS things,

And it's like,

Oh,

Did you hear this,

You know,

Oh,

What are,

You know,

Britney Spears,

I don't know who's famous these days,

Whatever,

This person,

They did this and that,

Did you hear about who's dating this and all this stuff,

All this talk that is really not conducive,

It might not be harmful,

Per se,

But it's not conducive to developing a mind that is clear and free of chatter.

The Buddha,

In speaking to the monks,

When he talks about what,

You know,

Idle chatter,

When he gives the,

He talks about talk of kings and governments and talks of heroes and talks of,

You read it,

And you're like,

That's like everything that's on TV now.

So,

It was like,

Yeah,

Okay,

Well,

At least I don't watch TV,

So I'm almost there.

But,

You know,

That's a very hard thing.

Even here,

You know,

I mean,

I'll be totally honest,

It's like,

It's very hard,

Even as monks living in a monastery,

Every single word we talk is not purely on Dhamma,

But when we're mindful,

We say,

Oh,

Okay,

Well,

You know,

We know this is silly,

Why talk about,

Who cares about this anymore,

We're trying to live in a monastery,

You know,

But sometimes,

Because we're so conditioned,

You know,

From,

We've lived so many years in the world,

It's something that is very,

It's normal.

You know,

When you have contact with a new person,

You know,

You're trying to kind of get to know somebody,

You know,

Beyond like where you're from,

You know,

Where you go to school,

Whatever you talk,

Then you find out,

You're like,

You know,

Oh,

You like music,

Sports,

Or this or that,

So it's,

I would say in some ways,

It can be skillful in a way to get to know somebody to talk about that,

But then afterwards,

You know,

There's a limit to that,

You know,

To sometimes,

Even sometimes when people come here,

You know,

Like somebody,

They're not even a Buddhist,

I'm going to be like,

Hi,

How are you doing?

I'm going to just start directly talking about the Noble Eightfold Path and all this stuff,

And they're going to be like,

What?

You know?

So sometimes it's skillful means,

Just like the Buddha talked about using the harsh words,

But the problem is,

Unless we really think we have the wisdom that we're doing it for something good,

We can lie to ourselves,

We can fool ourselves and think,

Oh yeah,

I'm really doing this for something really good,

But really we want to just,

You know,

Escape and get our mind all riled up and learn and talk about all kinds of different things.

So these are the four types of speech that the Buddha says are wrong speech and that we should practice abstaining from.

And so there's two suttas where the Buddha talks about,

So,

You know,

We've talked about wrong speech,

What about right speech?

He says,

The Buddha says,

A statement endowed with these things is well spoken,

Is blameless,

Is praised by the wise,

Spoken at the right time,

Spoken in truth,

Spoken affectionately,

Spoken beneficially,

And spoken with a mind of goodwill.

So these five things.

And the Buddha then says,

He's talking about himself,

The Tathagata,

He says,

The Tathagata,

In the case of words that are factual,

True,

Beneficial,

Endearing,

And agreeable,

And he goes through the whole list,

He says,

The words might be factual,

But they're not endearing,

They're not agreeable,

Et cetera,

Et cetera,

The Tathagata does not say them.

And so he goes through all the lists.

You know,

If there's one thing that's not there,

He's talking about,

He refrains from speaking.

But then,

And finally,

He says,

If something is factual and true and beneficial and endearing and agreeable,

All positive things,

Still the Tathagata knows the right time to say this.

So even if we think that everything,

All these factors,

That everything is true and beneficial and all of this,

It still might not be the right time to say these things.

And the Buddha says,

So why?

Because the Tathagata has compassion for all beings.

So this is where,

Again,

This is where that wisdom comes in.

Even if something's going to be truthful,

Right?

So something is truthful,

We know the truth,

Right?

And we go up to somebody and say,

This is true,

Right?

Maybe they don't feel it's true,

Or maybe they're not in the right state of mind to believe that.

Maybe if you say this is true,

But you're not saying it in a beneficial or endearing way,

These kind of things.

And so this is where miscommunication arises,

And this is where people misunderstand things,

And then all of a sudden people are getting into fights and all this kind of stuff.

So this is the importance of having that mindfulness,

Having that awareness and heedfulness in our actions while we're speaking.

There's a great quote in the Dhammapada where the Buddha says that,

Those who are mindful never die.

Those who are unmindful are as dead already,

Or I like to say the walking dead.

So you can see this,

Or sheeple or however you want to say it,

You can see this,

The importance of this.

So the Buddha is saying,

If you're living mindfully,

Then you,

Meaning when he says never die,

He's meaning that they become awakened beings,

Nibbana,

That's never dying.

But it's also not causing strife,

Not causing troubles,

Because when we live our lives with this mindfulness and wisdom,

When we have our thoughts and our actions,

When we're engaged in chatter,

When we're engaged in discussion,

We're examining our actions as we're doing them.

And as a matter of fact,

In the Monjom Nikaia,

Number 61,

There's a sutta where the Buddha is talking to his son,

Rahula,

And he tells Rahula that,

Just like looking in a mirror,

Looking at yourself in a mirror,

When you,

Before you are to perform an action of thought,

Of words and deeds,

Before you perform this action,

Think to yourself,

Will this be beneficial to myself and others,

Or will it be harmful to myself and others?

And obviously the Buddha says,

If you think it's going to be harmful,

Avoid doing it.

If you think it's going to be beneficial,

Then do it.

But,

This is the trick,

Right?

Sometimes we do things with good intentions,

But without the wisdom of that intentions.

So then,

While we're doing something,

We have to check again.

Is what I am saying and what I am doing,

Is that skillful,

Beneficial,

Or is it harmful?

Because,

You know,

We can do lots of things.

We have compassion and we go to perform an action and we have good intentions that it's going to work out very well.

And then,

While we're doing it or after we do it,

We realize,

Oh,

I probably shouldn't have done it that way.

I had good intentions to do it that way,

You know,

To do it,

But I didn't do it skillfully enough.

And so then,

After you perform an action,

Words and deeds,

Examine it again.

Is what I did,

Was this beneficial,

Skillful,

Or was it harmful and unskillful?

So you're examining your actions,

Examining your thoughts and your mind,

Just like you're looking at a mirror,

Just like you're looking at yourself in that mirror,

Examining those actions.

And what that is,

That's great advice because what it's doing is it is reminding you,

When we think of the word mindfulness,

The Pali word sati,

One of the ways you can define it is that moment to moment awareness,

Right?

Mindfulness.

The other way you can define it is recollection.

So if you're going through your day and you want to,

You're developing this mindfulness and trying to live all aspects of your life with mindfulness,

Well then,

As you develop the habit,

You know,

You might,

Maybe you get into a conversation and you start off unmindful,

But then something clicks in your mind.

That's your sati,

Your recollection,

And boom,

Okay,

Now you're like,

Okay,

Now I'm focusing,

What am I saying,

What have I done,

What am I doing now?

And so that mindfulness is guiding you in your actions.

And when you're going to perform that action with that mindfulness,

Then it's going to be a much more skillful one.

And that's why the Buddha is advising his son and all of us to do,

As examining what we're doing while we're doing it before and after.

And so just like looking at ourselves in the mirror,

In the monk's rules,

In the Vinaya,

The Buddha says,

If you are to admonish,

You know,

There's,

In the monk's rules,

Like say if I saw Bhanteji doing something bad as a junior monastic,

I could admonish him and say,

You know,

Please,

You should be doing this.

But no matter who is doing the admonishing,

Junior monks,

Senior monks,

Whatever,

They should examine these things.

They should examine,

Do I practice sila,

Is my sila well?

Do I abide with a mind of goodwill?

Do I abide,

Do I speak with,

You know,

Do I speak with pleasant tones,

These kind of things?

So before you go out,

Before you,

You know,

Somebody gets angry or they do something wrong,

I'm going to go and,

You know,

Tell them a thing or two.

Buddha says you stop and you examine yourself.

Are you a hypocrite?

Basically,

That's what it is.

That's really what it is.

Right?

Before you go,

You know,

Admonish somebody else,

Are you free of these things?

And so then he says,

Do you speak at the right time?

Do you speak of facts?

Do you speak gently?

Sounds familiar,

Right?

Do you speak beneficial words?

Do you speak with a kindly heart?

So this is all surrounding that mindfulness while we're speaking,

Being aware of what we're saying and what we're doing while we're doing it.

And in my own experience,

I can tell you that as you develop the practice,

You can do that.

You can be in a full-fledged conversation.

I can remember being in real emergency emergency situations and being in really important conversations.

And there's a part of my mind that was fully engaged in the conversation and there was a part of my mind that was analyzing what I was doing,

What I was saying,

And what I should say next in the most skillful way.

That's the power of mindfulness.

And so that's what we developed so that we can,

I like to say there's that old saying for when you're cutting wood,

Right?

What does it say?

Measure twice,

Cut once.

I like to say think twice,

Speak once.

So that's giving you that recollection of before I speak,

I should think.

And that's important because at least you cut it off right at the head there,

Any kind of unskillful speech if you do that before you speak.

And so we can know that words,

We've already gone through this,

Words are very,

Can be very harsh and can be very hurtful.

Right?

Buddha talks,

Buddha calls it verbal daggers.

There's a sutra where the Buddha comes up to these monks and it says that the bhikkhus were throwing verbal daggers at each other.

They were,

You're this,

You're that,

You know,

Just being angry and yelling at each other.

So that's in the sutra,

This is called throwing verbal daggers.

And the Buddha basically looked at this and he says,

I'm gone,

See you later.

So he goes to another group and he says,

And he sees like there's all these monks and they're living together,

Calm and quiet and they speak good words to each other and all these things.

And he's saying,

You know,

What do you do?

What do you do that this is how you live?

And they're saying like we practice and we come together to speak on the Dhamma and we,

You know,

We think if something needs to be done,

We don't say,

Well,

This person should do it or that person,

We just do it,

You know,

All these kinds of things.

And it's like,

Wow,

Yeah.

It's like this is how you are able to get along without having to throw verbal daggers and all these kinds of things.

And so we know that speech can be harmful,

But the Buddha also taught us how to deal with harmful speech.

And the sutta,

Kakachuppa Masutta,

It's the simile of the saw.

It starts out where there's this monk and this monk is really close with the,

This bhikkhu is really close with these bhikkhunis,

These female monastics,

And people are being really mean to them and saying all kinds of stuff and he gets really angry and he goes after them and he's yelling and hitting them and all these kinds of things.

And so the Buddha,

The Buddha's advice is that if somebody says something,

You know,

Mean to you,

To other people that you,

You know,

Have that are dear to you,

You know,

Are somebody,

People are throwing verbal daggers.

You should train thus.

My mind shall remain unaffected and I shall utter no evil words.

And starting with that person,

I shall abide the all-encompassing world with a mind imbued of loving friendliness,

Above,

Below,

And all around,

Unobstructed,

Without hatred or resentment.

So,

You know,

Today it's very easy.

Somebody says something,

You're a blank blank,

Right?

Normally,

What do we do?

Instantly we get defensive,

We get angry,

And we just start going back at them,

You know,

You're this,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

And then it just goes and it gets worse and you're throwing verbal daggers and you're dodging and you're throwing and all these kinds of things,

And then it just gets worse and escalates.

The Buddha teaches us to de-escalate,

Right?

The Buddha's teaching us that he gives us this advice right then and there,

Right?

If somebody is saying these things,

Doing these things,

Don't let your mind go off,

Because that's when unskillful and harmful things start to happen,

And nothing good comes of that.

And so even at the end of that Sutta,

The more famous story,

The more famous little parable,

Which is the Sutta's name,

After the simile you saw,

The Buddha says,

Even if so,

He continues,

Not only if somebody says something,

Even if they were to throw clods at you or do something physical at you,

Your mind should remain unaffected and you shall utter no evil words.

And so the culmination of that Sutta is,

Even if bandits were to take you and to saw you limb from limb,

Any one of you who were to have hatred in your mind is not practicing my teaching.

Whoa,

That's pretty serious.

And here I was worried about just,

You know,

Speech.

Right?

So this is the Buddha recognizes that speech can be very damaging and very harmful,

But he also advises us to train to not allow those,

That speech,

To control us and to give us,

You know,

To make our minds clouded and angry and aversive and all these kind of things.

And so to close out right speech,

Again,

Right speech is simply,

You know,

It can sound like,

You know,

You're in a situation,

I'm like,

Oh,

Is this abusive speech?

Is this malicious speech?

Is this,

This,

This,

All,

You can get all lost in these words.

It's very simple to just think is what I'm saying harmful or is it beneficial?

And as you get better at it,

First you think,

Okay,

Maybe it's beneficial.

And then you do it,

You realize,

Oh,

It wasn't beneficial.

Next time you do it better and you keep analyzing and you keep developing that habit,

Sela habit,

Right?

The habit of doing your best to live your life in where all your thoughts,

Words and deeds are skillful and beneficial because not only does that benefit you,

Not only does it benefit your mind,

But it benefits the people around you as well.

Right?

If you are peaceful and you speak calm and peaceful words and,

You know,

You speak the truth and people can trust you,

Well,

Then people feel happy around you.

People feel good around you.

People know,

Like,

Oh,

This person,

They'll never curse me out or they'll never be angry and yell at me and all these kind of things.

So,

Be careful of using your words as verbal daggers.

And we can practice this little by little,

Day by day,

As part of the totality of this Noble Eightfold Path.

Reviews

Exceptionally helpful to me! Thank U! www.gratefulness.org, www.compassioncourse.org, www.living-compassion.org, www.CNVC.org, ahimsa

Beautiful expounding of this most important element of practice. Thank you.

Good to review periodically. THINK .. thoughtful, hurtful, intelligent, necessary, kind!

Very nice lesson in right speech. I will reference as part of my mindfulness practice. Will revisit many times.
Thank you
🙏

A modern day approach to practicing the ancient truth of Right Speech. Thank you.

How important mindfulness is each time we speak. Thank you

Thank you for this helpful teaching! 🙏🏻

Your words were a great self awareness tool. It was a nice little reminder on how my behavioral words effect myself and those around me. Thank you for the helpful words. And FYI, you mentioned that you did not know who was famous these days. The answer is, almost everyone these days! Social media’ has given everyone the freedom of becoming famous with more ease or helps them think they are 😝

Thank you for sharing.

Very helpful. I like your straightforward presentation in your talks.

I have opportunities to practice this frequently, as I work with someone who is full of anger and often speaks harsh or divisive words. I look on this person as a teacher for me, both of metta and of right speech. I find your words helpful when I'm tempted to respond unskillfully. :)

Very inspiring and truthful. Thank you.

Thank you, this is a great reminder while I go through a strange time at work.

I loved this one, came to me at the proper time.

Great talk! Will listen many more times 🌸

“Think twice, speak once” my favorite quote from a great talk.

Very helpful, thank you!

I truly enjoyed this talk. Thank you for giving specific examples in each area of right speech. This was simply wonderful! May you be well and happy.

Sadu sadu sadu 🙏🙏🙏

I needed this today.

Important subject.